DT 108 

1-3 
.C72 

Copy 1 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 957 898 7 • 



-^1 



DT 108 
.3 

.C72 
Copy 1 



1885 



No. 3 



BULLETIN 



American Geographical Society 



NO. I I WEST 29TH STREET 
NEW YORK 




CONTENTS 

I'AGE 

The War in the Soudan for the Rescue of "Chinese Gordon " : by Gen'l R. E. 

Colston, of Washington, D. C. ........ 125 

NEW YORK 

PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 



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THE BRITISH CAMPAIGN IN THE SOUDAN 
FOR THE RESCUE OF GORDON. 

BY 

GENERAL R. E. COLSTON, of Washington, D. C. 

FORMERLY OF THE GENERAL STAFF OF THE EGYPTIAN ARMY. 

I propose to present in this paper an outline narrative 
of tlie war in tlie Soudan for the rescue of " Chinese 
Gordon." The limits of such an article forbid more than 
a brief allusion to the events which led to this war, and 
which are still fresh in the public mind. They may be 
summarized as follows : 

The brilliant and prodigal career of the ex-Khedive 
Ismail-Pasha ending in his financial ruin. 

The installation of European commissioners of the 
public debt, followed by swarms of high-paid British 
officials taking entire control of Egyptian finances, rev- 
enues, railroads, and telegraphs. 

The resistance of Ismail to their usurpation of his 
powers, and his compulsory abdication enforced by the 
British and French Consuls-General, June 26, 1879. 

The merely nominal rule of his son Tewfik, and the 
sacrifice of every Egyptian interest to the payment of 
foreign bondholders ; the dissatisfaction of the people, 
and the opposition of the Egyptian army to being made the 
chief victims of this policy, culminating in the military 
revolt of Arabi-Pasha ; the bombardment of Alexandria, 

125 



126 Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 

the battle of Tel-el-Kebir, and the British occupation of 
Egypt in 1882. 

These events made England the sole and absolute 
arbiter of Egypt's fate, for France had withdrawn from 
the " Dual Control " before the bombardment of Alex- 
andria, rather than participate in that ruthless deed! 

In October 1883, after one year of British domination, 
this was the situation of affairs.: 

The young Khedive was deprived of all real authority, 
British commissioners having more than ever before ab- 
solute control of the resources of the country and its en- 
tire administration. 

The Egyptian regular army was entirely disbanded, 
except a few of Arabi's disaffected regiments, sent to the 
Soudan as a punishment for their rebellion. 

A new native army composed of fresh levies, supposed 
by a convenient fiction to be the Khedive's army, but 
commanded by British officers, was created under Sir 
Evelyn Wood. A native constabulary force called ge7i- 
darmerie (whose officers were chiefly Italian), raised to 
serve as police and not as soldiers, was organized under 
Valentine Baker-Pasha, the British ex-colonel of hussars. 

The hitherto undisputed power of the Egyptian gov- 
ernment, which had enabled it to enforce order and 
obedience upon the turbulent and barbarous populations 
of the Soudan, was fatally impaired, for the garrisons 
had already been reduced for reasons of economy, in order 
that the bondholders' coupons might be paid ; and now a 
general impression that the Khedive had sold his country 
to Christians and foreigners began to prevail among the 
people, and to give double encouragement to the Mahdi's 
rebellion which had commenced two years before. 



Tile British Campaign in the Soudan. 127 

Having taken entire possession of the country, avowed- 
ly not as a conqueror but expressly as a friend and pro- 
tector, solely to defend lier ally tlie Khedive against Ms 
rebellious subjects, England became in equity Egypt's 
guardian, and as she had rendered her defenceless, she 
was bound by every consideration of Justice to shield her 
from all harm. 

How had she come to occupy such, a position after her 
repeated declarations that the Suez Canal was the only 
British interest involved in Egypt, and that so long as it 
was safe, England would decline all interference in Egyp- 
tian affairs ? 

She had been driven step by step, almost unwittingly, 
to assume this role by the pressure of British bondhold- 
ers numerous and powerful enough to control both Par- 
liament and ministers. England's attitude at this time 
was tersely described by Hon. Henry Labouchere, the 
eminent M. P. and also editor of Truth, in these words : 
" Why are we in Egypt ? That shylock may have his 
POUND of flesh ! " 

Two courses were open to England. 

One was to frankly assume a protectorate and to gov- 
ern Egypt directly, either continuing the Khedive in his 
role of a mere figure-head or else removing and pension- 
ing him off like an Indian Rajah. 

The other was to limit the sphere of British action to 
securing the Khedive's power until he could re-organize 
his own army and consolidate his government. This ob- 
ject once attained, he should have been left free to govern 
Egypt in his own way, providing only for his compliance 
with the obligations he had contracted. 

But just at this time commenced that astounding series 



/. 



128 Tlie British Oampaign in the Soudan. • 

of vacillations, both, political and military, that were 
destined to produce such disastrous results. 

To proclaim a protectorate over Egypt was to falsify 
the declarations so often repeated to the world, and to 
incur the hostility of Turkey and France as well as the 
jealousy of other powers. 

On the other hand, to withdraw her army from Egypt 
and leave the Khedive to govern independently, seemed 
to the British ministry a sacrifice of prestige and of the 
advantages apparently secured by the occupation. 

In the words of a distinguished publicist ^' : " The 
ministry cherished the delusion that some middle course 
was open to them, by which, while retaining the ad- 
vantages of a virtual protectorate, they could avoid the 
liabilities inseparable from its overt assumption. . . . 
We have deranged every thing and have established 
nothing in its place." While England held the Khe- 
dive in the most absolute tutelage, shorn of every power, 
■she wished the world to believe that he enjoyed entire 
freedom of action and was alone responsible for the 
acts of his government. In pursuance of this x^olicy of 
half measures, a partial evacuation was announced by 
Mr. Gladstone at the Guildhall banquet in London on 
the 9th of Nov., 1883, and this declaration was con- 
sidered as the prelude to a complete withdrawal of 
the British army from Egypt. Consequently the reforms 
and innovations forced upon the Egyptian people in spite 
of their bitter antipathy were now regarded by them 
as temporary evils which would cease with the British 
occupation. To quote again from the same writer : 

* Edward Dicey, Professor of Political Science and Economy at Oxford, in the 
Nineteenth Century for March, 1884. 



The British Qmrupaign in the Soudan. 129 

" Egyj^t was given to understand that after having 
bombarded Alexandria, invaded the country, exiled 
Arabi, deprived the Khedive of his authority, disor- 
ganized the native administration, destroyed the mech- 
anism by which hitherto order had been maintained 
after a fashion, and established in its stead a number of 
institutions on paper, which could be converted into reali- 
ties only if ensured by a prolonged occupation, we were 
about to throw up the task we had undertaken and leave 
the country to its fate — i. e., to a state of confusion closely 
bordering upon anarchy." 

But this programme of evacuation was suddenly aban- 
doned. Mr. Gladstone's Guildhall speech was made on 
the 9th of November, and on the 20th, news reached 
London of the entire annihilation in the Soudan of 
Hicks-Pasha's army of eleven thousand men, and of the 
defeat and death of Consul Moncrieff at Tokar. The 
orders already issued for the embarkation of one half of 
the British army and the withdrawal of the remainder 
from Cairo to Alexandria were countermanded, and the 
Soudan suddenly loomed up into formidable pi'ominence, 
for while Enoiand had concentrated all her efforts to 
suppress Arabi's rebellion, another much more formida- 
ble had broken out in the distant regions of the Upper 
Nile. The easy triumph over the TCi&f^ fellaheen in the 
holiday campaign of Tel-el-Kebir had been thought the 
end of the troubles, but now it seemed only the 
beginning thereof. 

A description of the Soudan with its relation to Egj'pt 
proper is necessary to a complete understanding of what 
follows. 

In the words of Herodotus, Egypt is the gift (or crea- 



130 The British Campaign in the Soudan'. 

tion) of the Nile, for being a rainless country, she de- 
pends upon her 07ily river for her very existence. The 
experience of fifty centuries has proved that Egypt 
can never be safe unless she controls the banks of the 
Nile at least as far south as Khartoum. 

From the sea to the mouth of the Atbara above Berber, 
a distance of one thousand seven hundred miles, not a 
single affluent falls into the Nile, and the breadth of its 
valley above the Delta varies from a mere rocky canon to 
-a very rare masimumof three to four miles, the average 
being under two. Three million of people, being nearly 
one half of the population of Egypt and Nubia, are 
crowded into that narrow ribbon one thousand five hun- 
dred miles long by two in breadth, without any possible 
outlet, for all the vast spaces east and west (some eight 
hundred thousand sc[uare miles) are The Deseet. 

Vegetation stops just where the waters of the Nile can- 
not be lifted by irrigation, and the dividing line between 
that and the desert is as sharply marked as a gra^'el walk 
across a grass lawn. Between the Nile and the Red Sea 
is the Arahian Desert^ and on the west, extending until it 
joins the Sahara, is the Lihyan Desert. 

Yjgy^i 2Jro2X'r extends only to the first cataract at Assou- 
an, about seven hundred miles from the sea (lat. 24° 5'). 

Between the first cataract at Assouan and the second 
cataract at Wady Haifa, -the country is called Lower 
Nubia, and from Wady Haifa (lat. 22°) to New Don- 
gola (lat. 18°) is Upper Nubia. 

All the regions south of Dongola are embraced under 
the name of Soudan — an immense and indefinite region, 
stretching across the entire continent of Africa, on both 
sides of the equator, and subdivided by geographers into 



Tlie Bi'itisli Campcdgn in the Soudan. 131 

Eastern, Central, and Western Soudan. The name is 
derived from tlie Arabic aswad, black, of wliicli tlie 
plural is suda ; so that Beled-es- Soudan means simply 
the country of the blacks, or, as we would call it, 
Nigritia. 

The Egyptian Soudan comprises but a small portion 
of that immense territory. Its most important provinces 
are Dongola, Kordofan, Darfour, and Bahr-el-Ghazelle, 
west of the White Nile. Its eastern boundary is the 
Red Sea down to Massowah ; thence the Abyssinian 
frontier, between which and the White Nile is the large 
and fertile province of Sennaar. When Gordon was 
Grovernor-General of the Soudan (1874-1879), a chain of 
Egyptian garrisons, of which Grondokoro was the princi- 
pal, reached as far as the great lakes, all connected by 
telegraph with Cairo. This region, claimed by the 
Khedive as part of his dominions, was called the 
Equatorial Provinces ; but in reality it is occupied by 
warlike negro tribes — Dinkas, Shillooks, Dowers, and 
others too numerous to mention, and generally partici- 
pants in the slave-trade either as hunters or hunted ; so 
that the Khedive's authority was limited to a small circle 
around each military post. Even in time of peace and 
under Ismail's and Cordon's strong government those 
tribes would frequently attack small Egyptian detach- 
ments, as when they massacred young Linant and his 
party in 1875. It flattered Ismail's pride to imagine that 
his empire extended to the lakes, but in fact, beyond 
Sennaar on the east, and Bahr-el-Chazelle on the west, 
the Khedive's authority was purely nominal. 

Mehemet-Ali, the great-grandfather of the present 
Khedive, was a man of eminent abilities, but merciless 



132 Tlie Britisli Camixtign in the Soudan. 

and unscrupulous. He liad no sooner consolidated his 
tenure of the vice-regal throne than he resolved to 
increase his territory. This was impossible within the 
narrow valley of the lower Nile ; but above the arid 
deserts of Nubia are broad and fertile regions inside of 
the southern rain-belt, and well watered by the Atbara, 
the Sobat, and other affluents of the Nile. The so-called 
island of Meroe was formerly the centre of a civilization 
older than the Pharaohs. Standing upon the site of the 
ancient city, I counted no less than forty -two pyramids — 
smaller, it is true, than those of Gizeh, but of a size to 
be considered gigantic in any other land. Later still, 
Meroe was the seat of five populous Christian bishoprics.* 
Sennaar, lying between the White and the Blue Niles, pos- 
sesses a soil of unrivalled fertility and produces wheat, 
corn, cotton, sugar, and gum in prodigious abundance, 
beside the senna to which it gives its name. Kordofan, 
on the west of the White Nile, is a sterile and almost 
waterless region, yet it yields vast quantities of ostrich 
feathers and the great bulk of the best gum-arabic of the 
world. But better still, the master of those provinces 
controls the rich trade of Central Africa — ebony, gold- 
dust, ivory, indigo, india-rubber, and above all, slaves. 
A pretext was easily found, and in 1822 Mehemet-Ali 
had achieved the conquest of Sennaar and Kordofan. 
Until that time the country had been ruled by number- 
less Sultans, as they called themselves, and its condition 

* A fact mentioned by early historians and confirmed by the researches of Mon- 
signor Daniele Comboni, Bishop of Nigritia, a most accomplished Arabic scholar 
and archeologist. He was a native of Verona, a man of splendid presence, genial 
nature, and the most liberal-minded priest I ever met. lie accompanied me on my 
return journey from El Obeid through Khartoum, Berber, and Suakim to Cairo, 
and he died in Kordofan in 1881, in the prime of middle life, a victim to the mur- 
derous climate. 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 133 

from time immemorial had been one of continual rapine, 
anarchy, and savagery. Commerce could hardly be said 
to exist, for caravans had to pay heavy tributes to every 
robber chief, and even this did not always secure their 
lives and property from attacks by roving bands of 
Bedouins. Striking mementoes of that period of brig- 
andage are the ruins of ancient castles seen on many 
basaltic islands rising one or two hundred feet above 
the river-bed. Some, like the feudal fortresses on the 
Khine (which they so much resemble), were once the 
strongholds of bandit chiefs, whence they could spy out 
the approach of their prey ; while others served as 
refuges in which the agricultural population stored their 
crops to save them from the raids of the desert nomads. 
Mehemet-Ali's conquest was accompanied by fearful 
cruelties on both sides. I have stood at Shendy upon 
the very spot where Mehemet's son, Ismail, was roasted 
to death with all his chief officers and a portion of 
his troops. Ismail had made extortionate demands for 
gold, slaves, and forage upon the local Sultan, el Nhnr 
(the Tiger), and had struck him across the face with his 
pipe-stem because the forage fell short. The crafty chief 
retired humbly from his presence, promising that an 
abundance would be supplied before morning. All 
the afternoon and evening immense quantities were 
piled all around the quarter of the town where Ismail 
and his troops were holding high revel. But an hour 
before daylight the stacks were simultaneously fired 
at every point, and the doomed Turco-Egyptians found 
themselves surrounded by a circle of flames from which 
none escaped, for el Nimi^ with his Nubians stood out- 
side and shot down or speared every one who attempted 



134 Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan.' 

to break tlie fiery barrier. To avenge liis son's death, 
Mehemet-Ali sent another army under bis son-in-law — 
the famous Defterdar (so-called from Ms office of regis- 
trar or treasurer), whose name still lives in Egyptian 
traditions on account of his fiendish cruelties. This 
army of Asiatic Turks showed little mercy to African 
barbarians. More than 100,000 people were slaughtered 
between Abou Hamed and Khartoum, and a still larger 
number, chiefly boys and young women, were sent down 
as slaves to Lower Egypt. The bloody memories of the 
conquest were never forgotten, but so thorough had it 
been that sixty years elapsed without a general attempt 
at rebellion. 

Even the worst evils are often followed by good re- 
sults. By degrees, order, defective as it might be, arose 
from absolute chaos. Mehemet-Ali visited the Soudan 
and his military eye perceived at one glance the strategic 
importance of the point of land at the Junction of the 
A¥hite and the Blue Niles. There he founded Khartoum 
(lat. 15° 30') and made it the capital of the Soudan prov- 
inces, with a government palace, extensive barracks for 
troops, an arsenal, a ship-yard, and a growing population 
which, in 1876, had increased to more than 40,000. A 
despotic and often cruel government, establishing strong 
garrisons at important points, commanded peace and en- 
forced obedience. Commerce, agriculture, and industry 
took the place of pillage and murder, and were efficiently 
protected though heavily taxed. Famines which were 
the frequent consequence of continual wars and rapine, 
disappeared after a government strong and regular, even 
if arbitrary and tyrannical, had given the husbandman an 
assurance of reaping the crop which he had planted. 



Tlie British Cmnpaign in the Soudan. 135 

Every tiling in this world is relative. Wliat would be 
an intolerable government for France or England may be 
very acceptable to a semi-civilized population, especially 
if it is better than any thing they have experienced before. 
I explored the greater part of the Soudan — the deserts 
between the Nile and the Red Sea from Kenneh to 
Suakim, as well as Kordofan on the west of the Nile. 
Altogether I spent two years travelling 6,000 miles on 
camel-back among the most numerous and powerful 
Bedouin tribes now in insurrection, and visiting all 'the 
principal cities — Berber, Dongola, Debbe, El Obeid, 
Khartoum, Suakim, etc., etc. In all my explorations I 
had the best opportunities, and I made it a point to ex- 
amine the condition of the country and the people. 
There were certainly no reasons to bias my Judgment, 
and I give now the result of my experience and observa- 
tions. 

Everywhere I found the primary eleiaent of civilization 
and without which none can exist, — suhrnission to law. 
It may be thought a crude aud defective law, but it pos- 
sesses the advantage of the universal assent of the people, 
being based upon the Koran, which on the whole, is a 
humane and equitable code. Life and property were 
safer than in our own wild border lands. Of that ruffian- 
ism which makes a hero of a bandit like Jesse James and 
glorifies the monster who has killed a score of men in 
private brawls, there was not a trace. Murders were 
rare and generally punished with death. I remember 
seeing at El Obeid the body of a murderer hanging from 
the gallows on the market-place. He had been con- 
victed after a regular trial before the Cadi, but it was 
not until the case had been carefully revised by the 



136 IVie JBritish Ganvpaign in, the Soudan. 

Mgliest tribunal and tlie sentence approved by tlie Khe- 
dive himself tliat lie was executed ; for no provincial 
governor was authorized to cany out a capital sentence, 
except Gren. Gordon, upon whom the powers of life and 
death had been conferred by special firman for the pur- 
pose of suppressing the slave trade. Even the wild 
Bedouins, fierce nomads without fixed habitations, and 
yielding only a limited allegiance, had been compelled to 
abandon the plundering habits of their forefathers, and 
their sheikhs were held answerable with their heads for 
the safety of life, travel, and property throughout their 
deserts. In many thousand miles of travel among the 
now rebellious tribes, the Bishareens, Hassaneeyehs, 
Kababeesh, and others, I have met hundreds of caravans 
loaded, some with the most valuable products of Central 
Africa, others with European goods going to the interior. 
The commerce thus carried on by land, exclusive of the 
river trade, amounted to twenty-five or thirty millions of 
dollars a year. Yet no caravan, large or small, needed 
the protection of an armed escort, and all travelled in 
perfect safety under the charge of unarmed camel-drivers 
and the half-dozen merchants owning the goods. The 
certainty of swift and stern punishment by t^iQ Khedive's 
governmsnt, known to possess irresistible power to infiict 
it, was sufficient to guarantee security to all. 

In Kordofan, one of the remote provinces, European 
as well as native merchants carried on an active trade by 
means of the electric telegraph, which reached to Darfour 
and the lakes, and they regulated their transactions by 
the daily quotations of ivory, gum and ostrich feathers at 
Cairo and Alexandria. This fact came under my per- 
sonal observation at El ObeYd, as well as the following. 



The British Camjpaigii in the Soudan. 137 

A branch of tlie great Austro-Italian Roman-Catholic 
mission at Khartoum was established at EI Obeid, con- 
sisting of twelve or fifteen priests and sisters. In that 
city of thirty thousand people, of whom two thirds were 
Mussulmans and the rest heathen negroes, priests and 
nuns in their distinctive costumes were daily seen plying 
their vocation absolutely unmolested in any way, though 
I cannot say that they made any converts, except the 
little boys and girls whom they purchased in infancy and 
taught in their school, and who continued good Christians 
so long as they were clothed and fed — and no longer. 
There were also some other branch missions far away 
from the protection of the garrison at El Obeid, and they 
remained unmolested until the Mahdi captured that city, 
when twelve members were held for ransom and released 
upon payment of seventy thousand dollars by the Aus- 
trian consul at Khartoum. I can assert with truth that 
wherever an Egyptian garrison could enforce its authority, 
life and property were reasonably well protected, far better 
than could have been expected in such distant regions, 
and among a semi-barbarous people. 

Yet I do not pretend to say that even under Ismail the 
Soudan was an Arcadia. By no means ! For some years 
after the conquest, the military governors, all Turks, 
were cruel and rapacious, and confirmed the hatred for 
Turkish officials so deeply implanted in the Soudanese 
heart, and embracing all Egyptians whom they regard as 
Turks. But for the last thirty years, a milder regime had 
gradually prevailed. It cannot be denied, however, that 
the rapacity of the governors aud their subordinates 
could never be entirely checked at such a distance from 
the seat of government at Cairo. The peasant or laborer 



138 Tlie British Campaign m the Soudan. 

liad to pay in extortions nearly as mncli again as the just 
amount of taxes wliicli found its way to the government 
chest. But yet he had enough left to live easily in his 
frugal way, and was secure in the enjoyment of this sur- 
plus ; whereas, before the conquest he never knew when 
war or the roving Bedouins would rob him of his sus- 
tenance and his life. No doubt there were numerous 
cases of wrong and oppression. • Traders frequently had 
to pay heavy backsheesh to avoid worse extortion ; but, 
after all, the government gave them the protection with- 
out which they could not have carried on their trade at 
all. Many poor wretches received the kourbash to force 
from them the payment of their taxes ; but it was a point 
of honor with them, and they would have been branded 
as cowards by their fellows if they had paid up before 
taking as many strokes as they could bear. A civilized 
people is ruled by moral suasion, not, however, without 
severe j)enalties to enforce its laws ; but barbarians can- 
not be controlled without a good deal of brute force. 
Full allowance being made for taxation and extortion, 
the population did not have to bear nearly so heavy a 
burden as that laid upon the Irish people in rents alone ; 
nor had they to contend with evictions and starvation. 
The mildness of the climate making clothing and shelter 
almost a superfluity, the fertility of the cultivated land, 
and the increase of their flocks combine to procure to the 
Egyptian and Soudanese people a far easier life than falls 
to the lot of the peasantry of Ireland and all northern 
Europe. If law, order, and a regular government, even 
though defective, are preferable to anarchy, brigandage 
and incessant war, the Soudan was in vastly better condi- 
tion under Ismail-Pasha than it had ever been before the 



The British, Campaign in the Soudan. 139' 

conquest. And be it remembered tliat tlie only alternative 
is between tliis imperfect but strong government, and a 
return to tlie former chaos and savagery ; for tlie Soudan- 
ese, if left to themselves, must inevitably fall under the 
rule of numerous rival chiefs of slave-traders, of whom 
Abou-Saoud, Zobehr-Pasha, and Osman-Digma are repre- 
sentative types. 

Such, then, was the condition of the Soudan under 
Gordon's administration before the deposition of Ismail ; 
and it cannot be denied that that country enjoyed 
many benefits of an incipient civilization, destined to in- 
crease and develop if its government remained undis- 
turbed. 

But no government can be supported without taxation, 
and an ignorant people are unable to realize that the pro- 
tection they receive is far more than an equivalent return 
for the taxes which they pay. It is not astonishing 
therefore that the Soudanese lost sight of the advantages 
they enjoyed in the security for life and industry, and 
considered all taxation as robbery. In the memory of 
their fathers, time had been when no governors and sol- 
diers were sent to make them pay tribute to a Turkish 
viceroy at Cairo. The traditions of the cruel conquest 
with fi.re and sword sixty years before still lingered 
among the people, and it told them of the days when 
they were subject only to their own native sultans. With 
the natural tendency of a primitive people to extol " the 
good old times," they forgot that those petty despots 
were the absolute and unsparing masters of the lives and 
property of their subjects, and kept the country in a state 
of perpetual strife and devastation. These memories, kept 
alive by the extortions of some rapacious officials, nursed 



140 Tlie British Camjpaign in the Soudan. 

the race-hatred of the Soudanese for the Egyptians, but 
with the great mass of the people it was a passive senti- 
ment which would remain dormant unless aroused by ex- 
citing causes. 

A much more active and dangerous element of discon- 
tent was found in the large and powerful class engaged 
in the slave-trade, that curse of Africa probably as old as 
the negi'o race with which it seems to be an innate in- 
stinct ; for as Sir Samuel Baker remarks, the first impulse 
• of a freed negro, as soon as he has a chance, is to acquire a 
slave of his own. That this trade existed in the days of 
the Pharaohs is placed beyond doubt by the images of 
chain-gangs of negro slaves carved upon their monuments. 

The strength and magnitude of the slave-hunting and 
slave-trading organizations cannot be appreciated without 
a description of their system of operations. 

An enterprising adventurer starts with a capital of 
£1,000 which, if he has it not, he can always borrow in 
Khartoum at 100 per cent, interest. He enlists 150 
men from the thousands of slave-hunting soldiers and 
desperadoes who swarm in Khartoum and Dongola, eager 
for such employment. He supplies them with fire-arms 
and abundant ammunition ; he buys a few hundred 
pounds of glass beads and a few hundred yards of coarse 
cotton fabrics for presents and barter. He charters six 
or eight Nile-boats and leaves Khartoum about the 1st of 
December. Sailing some five hundred miles or more up 
the White Nile, he lands at some eligible point and pene- 
trates into the interior. First he begins to trade for ele- 
phants' tusks, but this is only a preliminary to more 
serious business. He invariably finds some negro chief 
at enmity with another and anxious to secure an ally so 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 141 

well provided witli fire-arms. A bargain is soon con- 
cluded, and they make a joint nigM-attack upon tke ene- 
my's villages, setting tke straw kuts on fire. All tke 
warriors wko resist are shot down with musketry as 
they rush out of their blazing homes. The rest, together 
with the women and children are captured, as well as the 
cattle still coralled in the zeribas.'"" The negro chief is 
delighted, for his enemy is " wiped out," and he himself 
is rewarded with fifty or one hundred cattle and three or 
four handsome slave girls. He and his people covet cat- 
tle above all things, and the trader has captured probably 
some two thousand head which he proceeds to barter for 
ivory — a cow for a tusk, which is all profit since the cows 
have cost him nothing. When no more ivory is to be 
had, the trader usually picks a quarrel with his late allies 
who in their turn are murdered or enslaved, their women, 
children, and the coveted cattle being added to the pre- 
viously acquired booty. 

In an average season, a party one hundred and fifty 
strong will secure ivory to the amount of £5,000. The 
men are paid their wages in cattle and slaves which have 
cost nothing, and receive in addition one third of the 
stolen cattle, leaving some four or five hundred slaves 
worth five or six pounds per head for the trader's own 
profit. These he crowds into his boats, guarded by a few 
of his men, while the rest establish zeribas from which 
they raid the country all around and procure more slaves 
for the time when their leader returns the next year with 
a larger force. 

* This word, of frequent occurrence hereafter, is spelled variously — zaribah, 
zeriba, etc., in the attempt to represent its true sound, which is zab-ree-bah, with 
accent on middle syllable. It means an enclosure, generally of thorny brush-wood, 
or a stockade. 



142 Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 

Meanwhile tlie slaver sails back down tlie Mle and is 
met at safe points by the regular slave-merchants called 
jellahs, mostly Arabs, waiting to purchase the slaves for 
ready cash. These unfortunates are now marched off by 
various routes, avoiding the Egyptian garrisons, some 
down the Mle, others across the deserts to the Red Sea, 
multitudes perishing by the way. The survivors find a 
ready market in Egypt, Arabia, "Turkey, Persia, and all 
the Mussulman provinces of Asia, while the successful 
adventurer returns with his ivory and gold to Khartoum, 
already a rich man. There he repays his loan with 
interest, jjurchases fresh supplies for the men he left 
behind, enlists more followers, and starts back the fol- 
lowing December to operate year after year upon an 
ever-increasing scale. 

The practical working of this system is fully illustrated 
by the career of the notorious Zobehr-Pasha who rose 
from a common slave-hunting hireling to a conqueror, 
and narrowly missed becoming a king. 

He was of that turbulent Dongola race who take 
to slave-hunting as naturally as a duck to water, and he 
began his career as a mere enlisted mercenary ; but be- 
fore long he started on his own account, and possessing 
a natural aptitude for organizing and commanding men, 
his zeribas were soon numbered by scores, forming a 
chain of fortified posts extending more than a thousand 
miles beyond Khartoum. Around his head-quarters at 
Shaka a town grew up as large as El Obeid, and there 
he kept up a royal state, with a body-guard, and chained 
live lions in his audience-hall. Dr. Schweinfurth states 
that in 1871 no less than 2,700 jellabs visited that place 
to buy the numerous slaves Zobehr had captured and 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 143 

collected there. Having devastated all tlie surronnding 
regions, Ms base of supplies was tlien tlie powerful king- 
dom of Darf our ; but Zobelir having incurred the enmity 
of its monarch, the latter forbade the exportation of the 
grain without which the slavers could not subsist. From 
his numerous zeribas Zobehr assembled an army of 
twelve or fifteen thousand men, and in a great battle at 
Menowatshee, in 1874, he defeated and killed Sultan 
Ibrahim and his two sons, thus extinguishing a dynasty 
which had ruled over Darf our for four hundred years. 
If let alone, he would have seized the vacant throne, 
but the Khedive Ismail was too far-sighted to permit 
a chief who once before had defied his power and 
attacked his troops, to become an independent king. So 
he sent a regular army, too strong to be resisted, to com- 
plete the subjugation of Darfour so nearly accomplished 
by Zobehr. The latter, making a virtue of necessity, 
turned over his conquest to the Khedive, expecting in 
return to be made Governor-General of Western Soudan. 
His hopes were encouraged, and he was invited to Cairo. 
But before going there he assembled his lieutenants at 
Shaka, and made them take a solemn oath upon the 
Koran to obey whatever orders he might send them from 
Cairo. Arrived there, he was made a pasha and assigned 
a pension of £100 a month. He had brought with him 
£100,000 in gold, which he vainly expended in urging 
his claims. He was treated with great honor, but kept 
in a sort of gilded captivity. Disappointed and irritated, 
he sent secret orders to his son Suleiman to summon all 
his followers to rebel against Gordon, and in a short time 
Suleiman raised ten or twelve thousand men, far better 
fighters than Gordon's troops, and secretly supplied by 



144 Tlie JBritish Cmn^aign in the Soudan. 

Zobelir witli money, arms, and ammunition. This re- 
bellion was not suppressed until twelve battles had been 
fought by Romulo Gessi, Gordon's valiant lieutenant, — 
killed some years later fighting another rebellion of 
slave-hunters. Suleiman himself was captured and 
'Gessi had him tried and shot for treason, with Gordon's 
approval, and among his papers were found Zobehr's 
letters inciting the rebellion. The latter was imprisoned 
for some months, then released, though still forbidden to 
leave Cairo, but not deprived of his honors and pension. 
When Gordon, in 1884, found his position at Khartoum 
untenable, he urged the British authorities to send 
Zobehr to succeed him, as being the only man able to 
organize a government and prevent utter anarchy, but 
his record was too black, and the authorities wisely 
refused to trust him. 

Zobehr was only one of many powerful slave-hunting 
warrior-chiefs. Another was Abou-Saoud who also 
raised a rebellion, and after causing much trouble, 
made terms and was received back into favor. Yusuf 
who did the same, was made a pasha and was exter- 
minated with six thousand men by the Mahdi, in 
Sennaar. Another was Osman-Digma who has done 
such splendid fighting near the Red Sea, and is still 
continuing the war against the British, In fact, slave- 
hunting is war on a barbarous and often extensive 
scale, and its leaders have to possess no inconsiderable 
military capacity. 

The slave-trade was the only one that flourished before 
Mehemet-Ali's conquest, and it continued to flourish un- 
hindered until General Gordon's appointment as Gov- 
ernor-General of the Soudan (1874-1879). From the de- 



Tlie British Camjpaign in the Soudan. ] 45 

scription given above of tine modus operandi of the 
slave-hunters, it is evident that the number slain in 
the raids or left to starve after the destruction of all 
their subsistence must nearly equal those reduced to 
slavery ; and of the latter, at least one third perished by 
the way, although none but the young and able-bodied 
wevQ considered worth carrying away. In spite of this 
frightful mortality, not less than thi-ee hundred thousand 
slaves were annually brought down the Nile and across the 
deserts from Central Africa. Baker, Schweinfurth, and 
other African explorers bear witness to the devastation 
produced by this hellish brigandage which reduced to 
absolute deserts provinces as large as France and Grer- 
man}^, and that had formerly supported a numerous popu- 
lation. One of Ismail-Pasha's strongest claims to the sym- 
pathy of the civilized world is the vigorous and earnest 
attempt he made to suppress this atrocious crime. He 
gave Grordon orders to annihilate it by the sternest exer- 
cise of military force, and invested him with unlimited 
powers for that purpose. The effort was only partly suc- 
cessful, for it is impossible to change in a few years 
the customs and traditions of centuries, although Gor- 
don's sub-governors were afraid to disregard his instruc- 
tions, and many slave caravans were intercepted and con- 
fiscated for having ventured too near the Egyptian 
garrisons. This fact came to my personal knowledge 
at El Obeid, where I was detained several months by 
the effects of the deadly climate which shattered my 
health for ever and killed a number of my comrades and 
escort. That city was the residence of the governor 
of the province of Kordofan, and in peace times was gar- 
risoned by some three thousand Soudanese troops. More 



146 The Britisli Campaign in the Soudan. 

tlian once I saw gangs of slaves Just released from the 
traders, being marclied down to the barracks by an 
Egyptian sergeant to be enrolled as recruits. They were 
great, tall fellows, emaciated by fatigue and starvation, 
and all just as perfectly naked as they were born. They 
walked in single file, each one fastened to the next by 
a piece of wood about five feet long, reaching from the 
back of the neck of the first man to the throat of the 
next behind him. Thus they had marched hundreds 
of miles, never released for an instant except when 
one would drop dead and be left for the vultures and 
hyenas. Perhaps half of them had perished by the way, 
and it was impossible to send back the rest to their coun- 
try. So the government made soldiers of them and gave 
them the women slaves for wives. This had at least the 
effect of discouraging the slave-trade by the confiscation 
of the merchandise. These fellows as soon as enrolled 
were clothed in a good white cotton uniform, fed on fair 
rations, of bread and meat, better than they ever had 
before in their lives. They were taught Arabic and the 
Mohammedan religion of which they soon became zeal- 
ous proselytes. They learned military drill and discipline 
very promptly and perfectly. These Soudanese regi- 
ments formed of men who had been warriors in their 
own country, not only looked very soldier-like, but they 
were greatly superior as fighters to the troops recruited 
from the meek and peace-loving fellaheen of Lower 
Egypt. 

But the current was too strong to be entirely stopped, 
and it sought secret channels out of reach of governors 
and garrisons. I was at Khartoum in 1876, during 
Gordon's governorship — but at that particular time he 



The British Camjxdgn in the Soudan. 147 

was on a tour of inspection to Gondokoro and tlie lakes. 
I made many inquiries and obtained mucli information 
from tlie Austrian Consul, who was in full sympathy with 
Grordon, and he told me that it was true that slave cara- 
vans were no longer brought to Khartoum, and that 
the traders had to seek concealment. " But," added he- — 
" if you wanted to purchase a hundred boys or a hundred 
girls, they can be procured and delivered to you at a safe 
place in twenty-four hours for $35 to $50 per head." 
Nevertheless, it is believed that under Gordon's rule the 
annual importation from Central Africa was reduced 
from three hundred thousand to less than one hundred 
thousand, and in the attainment of this result, great num- 
bers of the traders were financially ruined, and hundreds 
of the slave-hunting soldiers caught red-handed were 
shot — ^'■jpoiir encourager les cmtres.'''' It must be kept 
in mind, however, that this warfare was carried on 
against slave-hunting only. In the nature of things no 
interference could be attempted or was desired with 
regard to domestic slavery as it existed in Egypt and 
the Soudan. 

As a natural and inevitable consequence, all the power- 
ful class of slave-hunters, together with all those who 
derived profit from the slave-trade, such as jellabs, 
usurers, furnishers of supplies, bandits and adventurers, 
were driven to desperation by restraints which meant 
ruin to them, and they were ready for revolution. 

But far more formidable than all the rest, if once 
aroused into hostility, were the half million of Bedouins 
roaming the deserts east and west of the Nile, of whom 
every male above fifteen is a warrior. They are of dif- 
ferent blood from the people of Egypt and the Soudan, 



148 The British Ca/mpaig^i in the Soudan. 

tlieir ancestors having crossed over the Red Sea from 
Arabia long before the Christian era, and they have 
mingled but little with other races. They are true 
Ishmaelites, and exhibit the characteristics of the Arab 
race, being slender, of medium size, well formed, with small 
hands and feet and arched instep, varying in color from 
olive to dark bronze, and with straight aquiline features. 
They are proud, indomitable, and. prefer independence to 
life itself. Having but few wants, their deserts supply 
them with nearly all that they need. They are nomads 
whose wealth consists of flocks and camels, living where 
agriculture is impossible, and scorning the inhabitants of 
towns as " dwellers among bricks." Even Mehemet- All's 
iron hand could extort from them only the most limited 
allegiance. Though born- warriors, they never submitted 
to conscription, and they paid tribute to the Khedive 
because they found it to their interest to do so, being 
granted in return the monopoly of the carrying trade 
across their country, and allowed to retain their patriar- 
chal form of government under their great sheikhs, who 
can trace their origin even beyond the days of the 
Prophet."^* On these the Khedive bestowed high rank, 
privileges, and revenues on the condition of their insuring 
the peace and safety of trade and travel through their 
territories, and this they did so effectually that, as I 
stated before, no caravan needed an armed escort. The 
principal Bedouin tribes are the Ababdehs, Bishareens, 
and Hadendowas, on the east of the Nile ; the Has- 

* In my first lecture, published by the American Geographical Society in 1880, 
" Life in the Egyptian Deserts," I gave a very complete description of the man- 
ner and customs of the Bedouin tribes. We are compelled to write Arab names as 
they sound, hence the diversity in spelling them by English, French, Italian and 
German writers. 



The British Omnjpaign in the Soudan. 149 

saneeyehs, Kababeesli, and Baggdras, on tlie west. All 
tlie tribes wear tlie same costume, wliicli for tlie common 
people consists of a few yards of coarse wliite cotton 
clotli wound around tlie waist and legs to tlie knees, witb 
sandals for tlieir feet. The upper part of tlie body is 
exposed to tlie burning rays of tlie sun, mitigated only 
by tlie abundant grease with which they plaster their 
hair, and which melts and flows upon their breasts and 
shoulders. They all go bare-headed at all times, even 
when on the march the thermometer registers 150° or 
160°, with the fierce African sun vertical over their 
heads and the burning sand under their feet. Stranger 
than all, while some of the tribes arrange their hair in 
thick cushions, six or eight inches high, others shave 
their heads and seem to suffer no inconvenience from an 
exposure which would kill a European, or even an Egyp- 
tian in fifteen minutes. All the Bedouins go armed at 
all times, their equipment consisting of shields of hippo- 
potamus or giraffe hide, lances, and the broad, straight, 
double-edged, two-handed swords with which they make 
their headlong charges. Feuds are frequent among the 
sub-tribes, and their internal quarrels, of which the 
Egyptian government took no notice, always kept alive 
their warlike spirit. It is from these tribes that the 
Madhi and Osman Dio;ma obtained the OTeat mass of 
their best and bravest soldiers. 

With such elements it is evident that the Soudan was 
like a train of powder which a single spark might fire at 
any moment. Yet no general rebellion would have been 
attempted so long as the Khedive's government retained 
its power and prestige. But just at that time occurred 
a remarkable combination of circumstances. 



150 The British Cam/paig7i in the Sotidan. 

1st. IsmaYl-Paslia's strong personality was eliminated by 
liis forced abdication. 

2d. Gordon deprived of Ismail's unlimited support, and 
disgusted at the complaints of tlie British commissioners 
at Cairo, because, under his upright administration, the 
Soudan no longer yielded a surplus, resigned his office 
and his successor, Raouf-Pasha, reestablished the old 
abuses. 

3d. The Egyptian government was disorganized and 
its army destroyed by foreign interference and by Arabi's 
rebellion. 

4th. The iniquitous bombardment of Alexandria 
aroused the dormant Mussulman fanaticism, and the 
British occupation of Lower Egypt impressed the Sou- 
danese with the idea that the Khedive had sold his 
country to Christian foreigners. 

The natural consequence was that all the bonds which 
had kept the Soudan in subjection were loosened at 
once. Gordon himself had warned Ismail, when invested 
by him with unlimited powers, that when he left, it 
would never again be possible to return to the old 
Q'egione, and this explains the expression -he used later : 
^' I laid the egg which hatched the Mahdi." 

It is worthy of notice that no rebellion could have 
succeeded which did not appeal to the passions or inter- 
ests of all classes. The slavers' grievances had awakened 
no interest in the Bedouins of the desert or the tillers of 
the soil. Therefore Zobehr, Abou-Saoud, and Yusuf 
had been defeated. Other Mahdis had appeared from 
time to time, but appealing only to religious fanaticism, 
they had been easily crushed. But now only a leader 
was wanted who could unite all the elements of discon- 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 151 

tent under a common standard, and ' at the most critical 
and opportune moment tlie leader arose. 

In the town of New-Dongola, on the west bank of the 
Nile, some forty-four years ago, was born a Nubian boy 
with all the characteristics of his race ; a tall, well-pro- 
portioned form, dark-brown complexion, straight features, 
long and crisp, but not woolly hair. His name was Mo- 
hammed- Achmet, and his occupation in youth that of a 
carpenter and boat-builder. Before reaching manhood 
he resolved to become a fakir., and for this purpose he 
learned to read and write. The fakirs (Arab plural, 
fokarali) are a class who may be considered as half 
priests, half laymen. They are the school-teachers of 
Mussulman countries, and the instruction they impart is 
limited to reading and writing Arabic and learning by 
heart as much of the Koran as possible. They are also 
the expounders of the Koran which is not only the re- 
ligious but also the civil and political law of Islam, so 
that they are to some extent the lawyers of the country ; 
nor are they without medical pretensions, though their 
practice consists mainly in charms and the use of written 
texts of the Koran applied to the person of the patient or 
taken internally. A great portion of their income is de- 
rived from the sale of amulets supposed to protect the 
wearer against bullets and wild beasts, and the crops and 
flocks from the evil-eye.* Their influence over the super- 
stitious masses is immense. They are always called 

* One of the Egyptian staff-lieutenants attached to my expedition, a graduate of 
the Cairo Military School, quite intelligent, a fair mathematician and surveyor, 
reading and speaking French fluently, but a devout Mussulman, wfore an amulet 
composed of leaves of desert plants, the hair of a hyena, a piece of serpent-skin, 
the whole wrapped in a piece of parchment on which was a text of the Koran writ- 
ten by a fakir. This talisman, he assured me in all seriousness, rendered him in- 
vulnerable to all attacks of wild beasts as well as to the influence of the "evil-eye." 



152 Tlie British Ocmupaign in the Soudan. 

sheikhs (elders), and are treated with great reverence, 
which is still increased by their affectation of superior 
sanctity. 

It was not long before Sheikh Achniet, by his display 
of extraordinary piety, acquired the reputation of a holy 
dervish, a grade above that of fakir, and corresponding 
somewhat to the mendicant friars of Catholic countries. 
There was an ancient tradition among Mussulmans, that 
about the end of the thirteenth century of the Hegira 
(1882-3) a |)rophet would arise who would restore the 
glories of Islam and conquer the whole world. It was 
prophesied that this Mahdi (derived from hada^ to lead — 
Mahdi, led by God) would be named Mohammed, would 
be a carpenter by trade, would have only four fingers on 
his left hand, and certain moles or marks upon his face. 
By accident or design, Mohammed- Achmet while working 
at his trade had chopped off a finger of his left hand, and 
he claimed that his face bore the signs indicated by the 
prophecy. To increase his reputation for holiness, he re- 
tired to a cave in the island of Aba above Khartoum and 
became a hermit, pretending in the approved style of 
prophets to have visions and revelations from God. He 
was living there in comparative obscurity, evolving him- 
self into a Mahdi when I passed not far from his retreat 
in 1876. 

There can be no doubt that he was a man of uncom- 
mon shrewdness and ambition, and that he kept himself 
fully informed of all the events occurring in Lower 
Egypt. The wonderful rapidity with which news travels 
through mysterious channels in Mussulman countries is a 
well-established fact. In this way the disaffection of 
the army and people, the forced abdication of Ismail- 



Tlie British Campaigri in the Soudan. 153 

Paslia, the dictatorsliip of England and France, and tlie 
pronunGimniento of Arabi-Paslia were known in tlie 
Soudan two weeks after tliey occurred, in spite of tke 
official suppression of all adverse intelligence by tele- 
graph. It is a significant fact that the first military 
rising that brought Arabi to the front took place in 
February, 1881, and that as early as July of the same 
year, Mohammed- Achmet proclaimed his mission. Raouf- 
Pasha, then governor of the Soudan, received at Khar- 
toum, early in August, a message from him to this effect : 
" J3ismiTlah, er rachman, er raheem ! — In the name of 
God, the gracious, the merciful ! Blessings be on the 
Lord Mohammed and his race ! . . . This is sent 
by the servant of the Lord, Mohammed- Achmet, the son 
of Abd- Allah. . . . God has said in His only book 
[the Koran] : ' Oh ye that believe, I will show you a way 
by which you may be saved from great troubles ; only 
believe in God and in His messenger, and fight the Lord's 
battles with your goods and your bodies. And know 
this and hold it fast : that God has called me to be a 
Caliph, and that the Prophet (whom God bless !) has 
proclaimed that I am the expected Mahdi, and has placed 
me upon his throne above princes and nobles. And God 
has strengthened me by His angels and proj)hets, and by 
the elect and believers among the Djinns [the genii or 
demons, some of whom the Mussulmans believe to have 
been converted to Islam]. And He has also said, God 
has given thee signs of thy mission, namely the moles on 
thy left cheek. And another sign He has given me, that 
out of the fire appears a standard which will be with me 
in the hour of battle, carried by the angel Azrael, whom 
God bless ! And He has also told me that whoever does 



154 Tlie British Campaign m the Soudan. 

not believe in me does not believe in Him or His 
prophets. Whoever fights against me will be destroyed 
in this world and the next, and his goods and his chil- 
dren will be a prey to the believers ! " 

After this preamble, he summoned all governors and 
peoples to submit to his authority and join his standard 
for the destruction of all Christians, foreigners, and Turks, 
and the conquest of the entire country. He further pro- 
claimed the abolition of all debts and taxes, and prom- 
ised that all who fell in battle in his cause would enter at 
once upon the enjoyment of the delights of the Mussul- 
man paradise. 

At first, Raouf-Pasha tried persuasion and sent the ex- 
rebel Abou-Saoud to the island of Aba. The Mahdi, as 
he was now called, received him surrounded by several 
hundred men in coats of mail and drawn swords. When 
Abou-Saoud represented to him the madness of rising 
against the government which possessed soldiers, breech- 
loaders, cannon and steamers, the Mahdi replied : " If 
the soldiers shoot at me and my people, their bullets will 
do us no harm ; and if they attack us with steamers, both 
steamers and cannon will sink together." 

Negotiations failing to produce submission, E-aouf re- 
luctantly had recourse to force, but he made the mistake 
of underestimating the importance of the incipient rebel- 
lion. On the tenth of August, 1881, he sent three hun- 
dred regulars and one cannon on two steamers under 
Abou-Saoud. This force would have been more than 
sufiicient if the soldiers had not been inclined to believe 
in the Mahdi's divine mission. When they landed and 
met the Mahdi, they refused to fire at the "holy man" ; 
— nevertheless the holy man and his people killed one 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 155 

hundred and thirty of the soldiers, and the rest fled in 
terror to their steamers. The gunner was ordered to fire 
the cannon at the Mahdi, who was sitting on horseback a 
short distance from the shore, but in his excitement and 
terror he fired wide of the marJi, and the Mahdi coolly 
turning his horse rode quietly awa}^, while the discom- 
fited expedition returned in dismay to Khartoum. This 
first success over the government troops gained for 
the Mahdi much prestige and a large increase of fol- 
lowers. 

In December following, the governor of Fashoda, a 
Kurd named Rashid-Bey, advanced against the Mahdi 
with four hundred regulars and two thousand Shillooks. 
A short and fierce battle was fought at Jebel Gedir, in 
which the governor and all his troops and nearly all the 
Shillooks with their king were slaughtered by the Bag- 
gdras. All the Remington rifles and ammunition of the 
regulars and a large quantity of supplies fell into the 
hands of the Mahdi, who captured Fashoda, an important 
military post on the White Mle. This second victory 
was followed by the accession of several considerable 
tribes. To the powerful and fierce Baggaras, who had 
already joined the Mahdi's standard, were now added the 
Kababeesh and Hassaneeyehs in Kordof an and the Abou- 
Rof in Sennaar, while the Ababdehs and Bishareens, 
between the Nile and the Red Sea, were ready to rise at 
the approach of the Mahdi who sent emissaries every- 
where with the ominous message : " Be ready, I am 
coming ! " 

In the meantime Raouf-Pasha was superseded, and 
Giegler-Pasha, a talented Bavarian engineer, with whom 
I had become well acquainted in Kordofan, was left in 



156 Tlie Britisli Campaign in the Soudan. 

temporary coniinand until tlie arrival of Abd-el-Kader, 
tlie new governor-general. The situation was very 
critical, for nearly tlie entire Soudan was rising; but 
Giegler who had been vice-governor since Gordon's time 
displayed great energy. He enlisted and organized a 
considerable force from the Chiaggias, Dongolawees, and 
other tribes which still remained loyal to the government. 
To these were joined about fifteen hundred regulars. 
This army, well armed and equipped by Giegler's care, 
and numbering nearly six thousand men, started up the 
Nile about the middle of March, 1882, for Jebel Gedir. 
Their commander was Yusuf, formerly a great slave- 
hunting chief, who had killed Munza, the king of Mon- 
buttu.* Later he had rebelled against the Egyptian 
government, by whom he was pardoned and received 
back into favor. He had commanded Egyptians under 
Gessi in the rebellion of Zobehr's son Suleiman, and had 
contributed to Gessi's victories, for which service he had 
been made a pasha. In June news reached Khartoum 
that Yusuf-Pasha with his entire force had been annihi- 
lated by the Mahdi into whose hands fell all their arms, 
ammunition, and a vast amount of supplies. As usual in 
those desert battles, only a mere handful of the van- 
quished escaped to tell the story of the disaster. The 
consternation of the European and Egyptian population 
of Khartoum and Berber was extreme, and with good 
reason, for before mid-summer Darfour was entirely lost, 
while Kordofan and Sennaar were in great danger, 
although Egyptian garrisons still held Bara and El 
Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, and the city of Sennaar, 
the capital of the province of that name. 

* See Schweinfurth's " Heart of Africa " for an account of King Munza. 



The British Gampaign in the SoudoM. 157 

It was at this juncture tliat the new governor-general, 
Abcl-el-Kader-Paslia, arrived at Khartoum. He was an 
accomplished officer who had received several years' 
training in the Imperial Military School of Vienna. He 
was a Turk by birth and a man of splendid, soldier-like 
presence. He had held a high command of Egyptian 
troops during the Turco-Russian war in 1877-78, and on 
several occasions had given proof of military skill and 
much personal bravery. One of his first measures was to 
abolish the government monopoly on all articles of trade 
except ivory, and to endeavor to allay dissatisfaction and 
revive trade by lowering tariffs and promising a regular 
steamer service on both Niles. But these reforms came 
too late, for nearly the entire Soudan was already in 
arms. 

Abd-el-Kader lost no time in organizing means of 
defence. No troops could be drawn from Lower Egypt 
where Arabi's rebellion was at its height. Abd-el- 
Kader had but a few companies of Soudanese regulars. 
He enlisted several thousand Chiaggias and Dongolawees 
and formed them into regiments fairly armed and 
equipped. He strengthened his position at Khartoum 
by erecting a substantial line of earthworks defended by 
artillery. His force was also augmented by many irregu- 
lars di^awn from the Bedouin tribes still faithful to the 
Khedive. 

If any illusions had existed as to the formidable char- 
acter of the Mahdi's rebellion, they should have been dis- 
pelled by the events now taking place. It had been gen- 
erally believed up to this time that the Mahdi's victories 
were due to accidental causes, and that if he should meet 
with a serious disaster, his followers would forsake him 



158 The British Caiupaign in the Soudan. 

and his power would suddenly collapse. But this expec- 
tation was totally disappointed. The Mahdi's forces were 
repeatedly defeated, but he seemed to gather new strength 
after each repulse. On the 24th of June he attacked 
Bara, near El Obeid, and was driven oif with great 
slaughter. On the 28th of August his relative and 
lieutenant, Amr-el-Makashef, attacked Duem on the Nile 
above Khartoum, with fourteen thousand men. The town 
was well fortified and garrisoned by five hundred Egyp- 
tians. The attack lasted four hours, until three thousand 
rebels had fallen under the withering fire of the Keming- 
ton breech-loaders. The remnant of this force retreated 
to Sennaar and was again defeated by Salah-Aga, and 
Amr-el-Makashef was killed ; but the main body suc- 
ceeded in crossing the White Nile and Joining the Mahdi 
who had invaded Kordofan after the destruction of Yus- 
suf-Pasha's army. 

On the 8fch of September, 1882, the Mahdi re-inforced 
by the accession of the Hassaneeyeh and Kababeesh 
tribes, appeared at the head of sixty thousand warriors 
before El Obeid which had been well fortified and 
was defended by a garrison of six thousand regulars, 
and twelve pieces of artillery. A furious attack was 
made at daybreak of the 9th. The rebels' charge upon 
the outer works was so desperate that the soldiers gave 
way and retreated upon the inner line. The enemy 
rushed after them in hand-to-hand fight and would 
have entered the place pell-mell with them ; but Is- 
kander-Bey, the Egyptian commander, exhibited rare 
coolness and decision. He concentrated a heavy fire of 
rifles and artillery upon the struggling mass of the enemy 
and of his own soldiers, killing three hundred of the lat- 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 159 

ter, but saving the town. On the 11th and the 14th 
the Mahdi's troops again stormed the works with desper- 
ate valor, opposing only swords and spears to the terrible 
fire of breech-loaders and artillery, until fifteen thousand 
men (one fourth of his army) lay dead or dying before 
the walls of El Obeid. After this enormous loss, the 
Mahdi sullenly retired to re-organize his shattered forces. 
It is a noteworthy coincidence that at the very same time 
(September 12, 1882) Arabi-Pasha was defeated with 
very feeble resistance at Tel-el-Kebir. 

The terrible reverse at El Obeid would probably have 
ended the career of a leader of ordinary capacity. Not so 
with the Mahdi ; it only proved his formidable power 
and tenacity of purpose. Allowing his followers only 
time enough to go home and secure their crop of dourah, 
he returned in December with one hundred thousand 
men, captured Bara, and then laid siege to El Obeid, 
which surrendered on the l7th of January, 1883, after an 
heroic resistance. Every article of food had been con- 
sumed, including even dogs. The soldiers had eaten 
their leather-straps, and the starving population rose in 
desperation to demand submission to the Mahdi. All the 
inhabitants, not excepting the Christian Syrian and Greek 
merchants, acknowledged him as a prophet, and the garri- 
son with the gallant Iskander-Bey joined his ranks, pro- 
fessing conversion to full belief in his divine mission as 
proved by his astonishing success. The greatest won- 
der is that they should have resisted so long a prophet 
who appealed so strongly to their religious traditions and 
sympathies. Among the captives were the members of 
the Catholic mission. The Mahdi treated them well in 
spite of the failure of his arguments to convert them, and 



160 Tlie Britisli Campaign in the Scnidan. 

finally liberated them upon the payment of a ransom by 
tlie Austrian Consul at Khartoum. 

This signal victory produced an immense effect 
throughout the Soudan. The Mahdi was now in pos- 
session of the capital of Kordofan, the largest city west 
of the Nile. Darfour and Kordofan were completely in 
his power, Sennaar nearly so, and the tribes which had 
wavered in their allegiance now recognized in him the 
true Madhi sent of God to break the yoke of Turks and 
infidels. The material results of his success were the ac- 
cession of the conquered garrison (some five or six thou- 
sand brave and trained soldiers), the capture of a large 
number of breech-loaders, twelve pieces of artillery, and 
a large supply of ammunition. El Obeid became his 
capital and his base of operations until Khartoum fell 
into his hands. ^Already the latter city was threatened 
by Bedouin raids, and numerous secret emissaries were 
inciting the people to rebellion. 

Such was the condition of affairs in the Soudan at the 
beginning of 1883. The attention of the Khedive and 
his government had been so concentrated upon the sup- 
pression of Arabi's rebellion that they had overlooked 
the Mahdi's. It was only after the capture of El-Obeid 
that they realized the extreme gravity of the situation. 
But they were now entirely helpless. The Khedive 
naturally applied for aid to his self-appointed guardians 
and protectors, but he was answered that British interests 
being in no way involved in the Soudan, England would 
give him no assistance. Yet, at that moment, a little. 
help would probably have checked the rebellion before 
it became too strong. With the British army of occupa- 
tion were several Anglo-Indian regiments accustomed to 



Tlie British Ckvmpaign in the Soudan. 161 

a liot climate ; tlie Suakim-Berber route was open, for the 
Bedouins of that desert were still loyal and the season 
was favorable. An expedition sent at this juncture 
would at least have saved Khartoum and the Eastern 
Soudan, as well as the lives and the millions wasted 
later in disastrous failure. 

Not only was England's aid refused to the ally whose 
army she had destroyed and whose government she had 
disorganized under the guise of friendship, but the 
Khedive was forbidden to use his own still considerable 
resources. He realized that unless he sent an army to 
suppress the Mahdi's rebellion, the vast empire of the 
Soudan would be lost to Egypt. He directed Genl. 
Charles P. Stone (formerly U.' S. A.), Chief-of-Staff of 
what had been the Egyptian army, to prepare plans and 
estimates for a campaign. Although this skilful and ex- 
perienced officer had never in person visited Upper 
Egypt or the Soudan, he had studied the reports of the 
expeditions which he had sent under American officers 
to explore those regions, as well as those of Sir Samuel 
Baker and General Gordon. He knew the geography and 
topography of that country, and understood the peculiar 
difficulties of warfare in the deserts. He was an excel- 
lent organizer and a judicious officer, by no means given 
to prodigality in public expenditures. After mature 
consideration, he estimated that a force of twenty-seven 
thousand regular Egyptian soldiers was necessary to re- 
conquer Kordofan, suppress the rebellion, and reinforce 
the garrisons so as to insure future tranquillity. AVhen it 
is remembered that AVolseley took over ten thousand 
British troops south of the 2d Cataract merely for the 
purpose of relieving Gordon and returning, without any 



162 The Britisli Cmnfcvigi^ in tJie Soudan. 

intention of suppressing tlie Mabdi, Genl. Stone's estimate 
appears very moderate, especially considering the very 
different value of Britisli compared to Egyptian soldiers. 

There were sufficient funds in the Egyptian treasury 
to fit out the expedition, and the required number of 
trained soldiers could have been very promptly raised by 
recalling the lately disbanded regiments to their colors. 
But just at that time the coupons were due to the foreign 
bondholders, and moreover, Egypt was to defray the 
cost of the British army of occupation and to pay 
$25,000,000 for the destruction of her own city of 
Alexandria by the British fleet. It mattered not that 
the Egyptian debt had been declared by British finan- 
ciers in an official report to Parliament to be more than 
double what was justly due. The bondholders' coupons 
must be paid though all Egypt perish. " Shylock must 
have his pound of flesh ! " Therefore, when the Khedive 
asked of his British masters permission to send an ex- 
pedition and submitted Genl. Stone's estimates, he was 
answered that Egypt could not be permitted to increase 
her financial burdens, and that the funds in the treasury 
could not be applied to the recovery of the Soudan. 

This opportunity being thrown away, nothing remained 
but to notify Abd-el-Kader to make the most of the 
means at his command. We have already seen with 
what energy he set about fortifying Khartoum and or- 
ganizing a force from the yet loyal tribes and the Don- 
golawee and other slave-huntiilg soldiers now out of 
employment. The only reinforcements given him were 
three or four of Arabi's disaffected reg-iments, sent to the 
Soudan in December as a punishment for their rebellion, 
but too late to save El ObeYd. With this accession, he had 



Tht British Campaign in the Soudan. 163 

in hand, an available force of about eight thousand men 
for active operations. During the spring and summer of 
1883 he defeated the Mahdi's forces in four severe con- 
Hicts. But his success excited Jealousy and intrigues at 
Cairo. Sir Evelyn Baring, who from a Major of iVrtillery 
had become the virtual autocrat of Egypt as Minister 
Resident, was unfriendly to him as he was afterwards to 
Gordon. Abd-el-Kader wa^ recalled. His successor as 
governor-general was Allah-ed-Deen, while his little 
army was put under the command of an ex-major of he 
Bombay army, until then unknown to fame, who was 
made a general under the title of Hicks-Pasha. He must 
have been a man of ability, for in spite of his ignorance 
of the people, the country, and even the language of the 
heterogeneous force he commanded, he inflicted three 
serious defeats upon the Mahdi's lieutenants on the east 
bank of the Nile, so that Sennaar was almost clear of 
rebels. The Khedive's ministers now urged the re- 
capture of El Obeid as necessary to the safety of Khar- 
toum and the eastern Soudan. The British commis- 
sioners being consulted, advised against it, but they did 
not forhid it, as they had the power to do. Says Prof. 
Dicey : " There is no doubt that England could if she had 
chosen have hindered the campaign of Hicks-Pasha. By 
the fact of her not exercising her right of veto, she be- 
came in reality responsible for it." And Sir Samuel 
Baker wi'ote at the same time : " Everybody knew that 
England was the only power in Egypt, and that the Khe- 
dive could not move his little finger without her special 
permission ; and that as she had completely fettered the 
Egyptian authorities, she alone was responsible foi- the 
situation." 



164 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

But this was only anotlier instance of tlie policy of half 
measures. The intention of the British authorities at 
Cairo was, if the expedition was successful, to claim 
credit for having permitted it ; if otherwise, for having 
advised against it ; and in any case to shut the mouth of 
those who pretended, that the Khedive did not possess 
absolute freedom of action. Yet while permitting it, 
every thing was refused that might insure success. " We 
absolutely refused," adds Prof. Dicey, "to allow either 
English or Indian troops to be sent. We also insisted 
that the native Egyptian arni}^ which had been organized 
under British officers, should not be sent to the Soudan, 
because as these officers still retained their rank in the 
British army, their participation in a Soudan campaign 
might be deemed inconsistent with the theory that our 
intervention in Egypt was only of a temporary and pro- 
visional character. Though we enforced, both by precept 
and example, the necessity of placing their troops under 
British officers, we allowed them to enter upon a momen- 
tous campaign while refusing the Egyptian government 
a permission to enlist the services for the Soudan of any 
officer either on active duty or on half pay." Sir Samuel 
Baker's arraignment of this shuffling policy is still more 
severe (see his letter to " The Times," dated Cairo, 
April 5, 1884). 

Hicks-Pasha organized an army of eleven thousand 
men. On his staff were eleven Englishmen who like 
liimself had severed all connection with the British 
service, as well as some officers of other European na- 
tionalities. Although he had six thousand camels, mules, 
and horses, so many ^vere needed for supplies, baggage, 
and ammunition, tliat he was unable to carry more than 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 165 

one day's water. From tlie moment lie left tlie Nile, 
none was to be found in tlie deserts of Kordofan, except 
in tlie rare and scanty wells of very great deptli (from 
one linndred to two hundred and fifty feet by my own 
measurement), and therefore very easy to destroy. Major 
von Seckendorff, an Austrian on Hicks-Pasha's staff, sent 
the last intelligence ever received from his army in a 
letter dated Sept. 25th, from Duem, describing the fatigu- 
ing twelve days' march along the Nile from Khartoum to 
that place. He said : 

" We hope to be in El Obeld in five weeks, if we do not die of thirst on the 
road. . . . The laclc of water is terrible ; all the wells on the road are de- 
stroyed ; when we inarch from here we leave the Nile, and other rivers there are 
none ; and we cannot carry more water than we need for twenty-four hours. 
The False Prophet will give endless trouble. He musters a great force, 
and disposes of over fifteen thousand good breech-loaders and fourteen cannons, 
besides holding two fortified cities, Bara and El Obeid. The most important 
thing is that he commands well-mounted cavalry, and fanaticism makes heroes of 
all. his people — a description which certainly does not apply to our troops. If our 
cavalry gives timely notice of attack from the Arabs, then all will go well ; but if 
they succeed in taking us by surprise, then we must be prepared for the worst. If 
they defeat us once, not one of us will return home, for then the entire Soudan 
will rise as one man. Khartoum and all will be lost. The people will then place 
unbounded faith in the False Prophet. This shows you that our position is by 
no means enviable. Yet I have not painted things darker than they are." 

This letter was absolutel}^ prophetic of what followed. 
x\s the army advanced after leaving the Nile, the Bedouins 
retired, destroying the wells and closing around its flanks 
and rear. At Kashgill, two days' march from El Obeid, 
a great battle was fought. The Egyptians, already ex- 
hausted by heat and thirst, formed in a square, stood 
their ground with the courage of despair for three days 
without a drop of water. Of those eleven thousand men 
none survived except one hundred and fifty, carried off as 
prisoners to El Obeid. Hicks-Pasha, his European of- 



166 Tlie British Campaign in the Sloudan. 

ficers, and AUah-ed-Deen, the governor-general, fell fight- 
ing to the last. Snch entire extermination is only what 
must happen on the desert, for if an army can be cut off 
from water for three or four days, there is no need to fire 
another shot. Should any fugitives escape the sword or 
the lance, they fall exhausted vnthin a few hundred yards, 
never to rise again. Von Seckendorff's ominous prediction 
was fulfilled to the letter. Not one man ever returned 
from that doomed army. 

: The battle of Kashgill was fought Nov. lst-3d. Three 
days later another Egyptian force was destroyed at Tokar 
on the shores of the Red Sea, eight hundred miles from 
Kashgill, by the Mahdi's chief lieutenant, Osman-Digma 
who had stirred up the warlike Bishareens inhabiting the 
deserts between Berber and Suakim. Col. Moncrieff, the 
British Consul at Suakim who had volunteered to lead 
this force, was killed with eleven oflicers and one hundred 
and fifty men. One cannon and three hundred rifles fell 
into Osman-Digma's hands. 

I have stated above that the news of these two disas- 
ters reaching London a few days after Mr. Gladstone's 
Guildhall speech announcing a gradual evacuation, j)ut 
an immediate stop to all. idea of reducing the British 
forces in Egypt. 

The consternation in Cairo was immense, and with 
good reason, for all the troo]3s in the Soudan except the 
enfeebled garrisons, had perished with Hicks-Pasha. 
Now, Khartoum, Sennaar, Kassala, Berber and even 
Suakim were in imminent peril. With them the entire 
Soudan would be lost, and the rebellion would endanger 
Egypt herself. 

Once more the Khedive and his ministers turned 



Tlie British Ccmipaign m tlie Soudan. 167 

to tlieir allies and guardians witli frantic appeals for 
protection. The British. Ministry's reply was that 
all the country above the First Cataract must be aban- 
doned ! . . . 

Should the reader incline to believe that I am 
biased in my judgment of events by anti-British preju- 
dices, I beg leave to state that nothing that I could say 
approaches the severity with which the course of the 
British government was denounced from the time of 
Ismail's deposition and even before, to the present time, 
by some of the most talented and prominent men of Eng- 
land, among whom are Prof. Dicey, Sir Samuel Baker, 
Henry Labouchere, Sir Henry Layard, and a number of 
others. I am not affected with either anglo-pJiobia or 
anglo-mania. Next after being an American (a good 
long way after, it is true), I would prefer being an Eng- 
lishman. My judgment on this subject is formed upon 
British statements, and my narrative of the campaign is 
taken mainly from British accounts impartially presented 
and criticised. 

I quote from a letter to the " The Times," dated 
Cairo, April 5, 1884, from Sir Samuel Baker, the African 
explorer and Gordon's predecessor as Governor-Greneral 
of the Soudan, a man whose position and experience give 
unconuuon value to his utterances upon the Soudan 
question : 

" We have so completely abstracted every vestige of power and authority from 
the unfortunate Khedive, that he cannot even nominate his own officers in any 
branch of the military or civil services. Having divested the legal ruler of the 
country of all importance, we add insult to injury by utterly disregarding his per- 
sonal existence in Egypt. . . . The so-called ' authority ' of the Khedive 
was rudely, if not brutally, negatived by direct orders from Downing Street to 
abandon the Soudan against the wishes of the ruler, supported by his Ministry, who 
resigned en masse at the presumptuous intrusion of the British dictum. 



168 Tlie British Ganupaign in the Soudan. 

" This act of unwarranted interference, by which an enormous area of the Otto- 
man Empire was wrested from its legitimate ruler and thrown into the direst 
anarchy, at once awakened Egypt to the hypocrisy of British declarations. The 
mask was for the moment cast aside. . . . Cotite que coute, the Soudan was 
to be abandoned, and proclamations to that effect were issued without delay. The 
fact of such a proclamation bore an immediate and fatal result ; every tribe that 
would have remained faithful to the government if prepared to assert its power, 
was in self-preservation forced to abandon a government that had forsaken the 
most sacred duty of upholding the rights of those subjects who had declared their 
loyalty." 

When Tewfik-Paslia was notified of the commands of 
the British Ministry, what manhood still survived in him 
after so many humiliations was aroused. For the first 
time he refused to obey, and declared his resolution to 
abdicate and to throw the responsibility upon England 
rather than submit to the sacrifice. 

But this could never be permitted, for it would destroy 
the beautiful fictions of England's disinterested occupation 
of Egypt and non-interference with purely Egyptian 
concerns, and of the Khedive's supposed independence of 
action ! A middle course was adopted. Tewfik was 
quieted by being permitted to call upon his suzerain-lord, 
the Sultan, for Turkish troops, provided that Turkey 
bore the expense and would bind herself to withdraw as 
soon as the Soudan was pacified. But this qualified con- 
cession was almost immediately withdrawn; and when 
Turkey prepared an expedition, England assumed the 
preposterous position of recognizing the Sultan's para- 
mount rights over the Soudan, and yet ordering her iron- 
clads to prevent, by force if necessary, the landing of 
Turkish troops in the Soudan. (See Sir H. Layard.) 
To quote from Prof. Dicey {Nineteenth Century^ March, 
1884): ' _ 

" Put into plain English, the programme came to this : England refused to send 
troops to the Soudan herself ; she forbade Egypt to send troops ; she consented to 



The British Cam])aign in the Soudan. 169 

troops being sent from Turkey only under conditions which rendered their dispatch 
impossible. In other words, England insisted that Egypt should abandon the 
Soudan to its fate. Now if this abandonment had been confined to Darfour, 
Kordofan, and the Equatorial Provinces, which Ismail Pasha had added to his 
dominions, no objection would have been raised. But what Egypt was bidden to 
do was to give up Khartoum, the centre and head-quarters of her trade with Cen- 
tral Africa, to relinquish the possessions which had belonged to her since the time 
of Mehemet-Ali, to sacrifice all her garrisons and settlements in the Soudan, and 
to permit the establishment of a powerful and hostile state in the vicinity of her 
own defenceless frontier, and in command of the river on which she depends for 
her existence. She was bidden, too, to do this while our English army was occu- 
pying her soil with the avowed object of strengthening the hands of her govern- 
ment, while her own military resources were not yet exhausted, and while the 
armed assistance of Turkey was at her service upon terms which for her own part 
she was disposed to accept. Under these circumstances it is hardly to be wondered 
at if the Khedive and his ministers should have refused this programme." 

A question suggests itself here. Wliy should England 
object to Turkey's sending troops to a dependency of lier 
own empire, unless it was feared that this re-assertion of 
her sovereignty over Egypt might produce awkward 
complications in case that England, at some future day, 
should want to annex Egypt absolutely, according to her 
usual and time-honored practice ? 

Meanwhile the order to evacuate the Soudan had been 
prematurely announced, and its effect was to add new im- 
petus to the rebellion. All the populations and the 
Bedouin tribes who had hitherto held a hesitating alle- 
giance, waiting to side with the stronger l)arty, now felt 
that their only safety lay in joining the Mahdi. If the 
evacuation had been secretly decided upon and quietly 
managed, the garrisons might have been safely with- 
drawn, but its imprudent announcement doomed them to 
destruction. 

Scattered over that immense territory between Berber 
and Gondokoro, as large as France and Germany together, 
were 26,000 Egyptian troops and 20,000 non-combatants^ 



170 The British Oampaign in the Soudan. 

European and Egyptian mercliants witli tlieir families 
wlio could expect no mercy, for tlie Malidi. liad decreed 
extermination against all Egyptians and foreigners. What 
was to be tlieir fate 'i 

WitL. tliat superb contempt for wliat they call inferior 
races, characteristic of the British ruling classes, the 
Ministry replied : " Let the garrisons be speared ! " 

A perusal of the English papers of that date will prove 
that I am merely stating the naked facts. Be it remem- 
bered to the credit of the British press and people, that a 
universal cry of indignation arose from them against the 
inhuman decree of their rulers. Grordon, that noble 
type of modern Christian cliivalry, protested in these 
words : 

" You have 6,000 men in Khartoum. You have garrisons in Darfur, in Bahr- 
Gazelle, and Gondokoro. . Are they to be sacrificed ? Their only offence is their 
loyalty to their sovereign. For their fidelity you are going to abandon them to 
their fate. You cannot evacuate, because your army cannot be moved. You must 
either surrender absolutely to the Mahdi or defend Khartoum at all hazards.. The 
latter is the only course which ought to be entertained. . . . But if, in a 
moment of panic, orders are issued for the abandonment of the whole of the 
Eastern Soudan, a blow will be struck against the security of Egypt, which may 
have fatal consequences." * 

Public sentiment had quickly become too strong to be 
disregarded ; yet the government still refused to send 
troops. Again a middle course was adopted. Since 
Grordon was so bitterly opposed to abandoning the garri- 
sons, let him undertake their rescue. His name and in- 
fluence might relieve the difficulty. On the 18th of 
January, 1884, he was requested by the ministers to as- 
sume the task, and he left London that same afternoon. 

* Gordon's words, "your army, your garrisons," when speaking to the British 
Ministry of the Egyptian troops, prove with what scorn he flung aside the hypo- 
critical disclaimer of responsibility and solidarity with regard to the events in the 
.Soudan. 



Tilt British Campaign in tlie Soudan. 171 

His mission was proclaimed to be one of peace, and lie 
was expressly" ordered to abstain from all aggressive 
measures. 

Stopping but one day in Cairo to confer with tlie 
authorities there, he crossed the Korosko desert accom- 
panied only by his faithful comrade, Col, O. H. Stewart, 
a few loyal Bishareen sheikhs who guaranteed his safe 
transit, and a son of Zobehr-Pasha who, no doubt, was 
sent by his treacherous father as a spy. Gordon had de- 
clared that if he could not have an army he would go 
alone, and the only material aid given him was £100,000 
in gold. The prestige of his name was expected to supply 
all deficiencies. He reached Khartoum in exactly one 
month (Feb. 18th). On his arrival he was received with 
fulsome protestations of loyalty by the principal sheikhs 
and all the demonstrations so dearly loved by the people 
of those regions. But he found the situation very different 
from what he had left it four years before. His disinter- 
estedness, justice, and liberality had won him great per- 
sonal influence and respect ; for a governor-general who 
refused to fill his pockets was a miracle in the Soudan, 
and probably his sanity was somewhat doubted in con- 
sequence. But mOvSt of the good he had accomplished 
had been undone by his successors, and what was chiefly 
remembered now was his energetic suppression of the 
Central African slave-hunting. This was a grievance not 
to be forgiven by the slave-trade interest which com- 
prised nearly the entire population of Khartoum. Their 
opposition was too powerful to be overcome, and it would 
render his mission impossible. This consideration com- 
pelled him to issue a proclamation reducing taxes, abolish- 
ing all monopolies, and removing restrictions upon slave- 



172 The British Campaign in the Soudcm. 

buying and selling, if not upon slave-hunting. The regis- 
ters and records of indebtedness to tlie government, the 
kourbashes and other instruments of punishment, were 
burned in front of the governor's palace. At the same 
time he sent the Mahdi a robe of state, and invested him 
with the rank of Emir or Sultan of Kordofan, both of 
which honors the Mahdi rejected with a defiant message, 
saying that his mission was from Grod and he wanted no 
dignities from infidels. This act of Gordon was an error, 
for it was construed as a confession of weakness, and it 
seemed absurd to ojffier the Mahdi the gift of a province 
whose possession was already his own by the conquest of 
his victorious arms. 

The condition of affairs is so well described by Sir 
Samuel Baker that I quote his o^vn words : 

" A few weeks' reflection brought the natural reaction. The discontented saw 
their opportunity — -Gordon had no army to support his moral power. Morality is 
held in slight respect in the Soudan unless backed up by military material. With 
all the best intentions, Gordon found his overtures rejected. His proclamations 
were ignored, and the announcement of abandonment was corroborated by the dis- 
patch of the sick and incapables towards Cairo, together with many of the civil em- 
ployes. It became impossible for the wavering tribes to continue loyal. Had 
Gordon been supported by a military force sent up from Cairo, he might have post- 
poned the movement of evacuation, but when once assured of the reality of that 
fatal act, even the loyal tribes threw in their lot with the general cause of insur- 
rection. 

" In the meantime the Egyptian garrisons upon the Red Sea coasts were threat- 
ened by the gathering forces of the rebels, headed by one Osman Digma, a slave- 
trader of evil repute in the Soudan, who had become an emissary of the Mahdi. 
The Egyptian forces were severely defeated, .the British Consul Moncrieff was 
killed, and the garrisons of Tokar and Sinkat were invested by the victorious 
Arabs. Suakin was threatened, and ^it became absolutely necessary to equip a 
powerful force from Cairo for the relief of the beleaguered garrisons. 

" It was then that the ridiculous absurdity of British interference was exemplified. 
At the battle of Tel-el-Kebir we had destroyed the Egyptian army, and we had set 
up in its stead a model army of 6,ooo men, under the command cf General Baker 
Pasha, who was summoned from Constantinople by the Khedive of Egypt, with 
the sanction of the British Government, to reorganize and to command the Egyp- 



The British Ca/mpaign in the Soudan. 173 

tian forces. He had quickly resolved order out of chaos, and had gained the confi- 
dence and approval of the Khedive and all Egyptian authorities, when he was 
suddenly superseded by a British officer who was forced upon the Khedive (Sir 
Evelyn Wood), and the British Government, which pretended to restore the 
authority of the Khedive, dealt the first blow and crushed that authority by super- 
seding the officer whom he had himself selected, and thrusting upon his acceptance 
an officer upon the active list. Thus the Khedive's army was taken completely 
out of his hands by way of proving our sincerity in restoring his authority. 

' ' At the same time Baker Pasha organized the gendarmerie, which in military 
appearance rivalled the regular army. This civil army was too military for the 
taste of British officials, and an order was issued (not by the Khedive) by the 
English authorities that the military element must be eliminated, and the gendarm- 
erie must consider itself a distinctly civil force ; it must therefore drop the martial 
appellation and be termed ' constabulary.' It was not to be considered as a fight- 
ing force. Events pressed forward. The littoral of the Red Sea was in a blaze, and 
troops were instantly required. It will be deemed incredible, but at the first 
moment of actual necessity there were positively no available troops in Egypt. 
The regular army of Sir Evelyn Wood had been recruited on the agreement that 
they were not to be employed beyond the frontier of Lower Eg}'pt ; therefore they 
could not be called upon to serve in the Soudan. It was also determined that no 
British officers upon the active list should be permitted to engage in hostilities in 
that distant province, which had been declared to be beyond the sphere of British 
intervention. Here was a muddle. Tliere was an army that was not allowed to 
fight, and this was the standing army of the Khedive, under Sir Evelyn Wood and 
■ a host of British officers.' The gendarmerie of Baker Pasha had been reduced to 
constabulary, and were expressly told ' that they were only a civil force to be em- 
ployed simply in Lower Egypt.' Thus, with all the expense of a most perfect 
military organization, there was not a single battalion to be found in a moment of 
grave emergency. This was the efficiency which resulted from a British adminis- 
tration. At the same time the garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar were surrounded by 
the enemy, and the brave defenders of the former were starving." 

Sinkat, the only town between the Red Sea and Ber- 
ber, was a summer-resort where the merchants and of- 
ficials of SuaMm repaii'ed during the hot season. It was 
a small place, about forty miles west of Suakim, and it 
had been fortified and garrisoned since the troubles be- 
gan, because its position in the mountains commanded 
the Suakim-Berber trail. For weeks it had been besieged 
by Osman-Digma's forces, and vain attempts had been 
made to relieve it. Tokar, another fortified position fifty 
miles south of Suakim and near the seashore, was also 



174 The British Campaign in the Sondafii. 

besieged, and it was known in Cairo that unless relief was 
sent at once both, those places must fall. Baker-Pasha 
was the only man available, but there were no troops. 
Zobehr-Pasha was employed to raise a force. The streets 
of Cairo and all the towns in Egypt were searched for 
blacks, and men were dragged off in chains to fill Zobehr's 
ranks ; but at the last moment he was deprived of his 
command, and the bewildered blacks were forced into 
the railway train for Suez by cavalry with drawn sabres. 
.These men, together with one thousand five hundred 
of the reluctant " constabulary police " drafted in spite 
of pledges to the contrary, and about one thousand 
Turkish Bashi-bazouks (Egyptian service), composed 
the unpromising materials out of which Valentine 
Baker was ordered to form an army for the relief 
of Sinkat and Tokar. Not only were they known 
to be averse to fighting, but most of them were 
suspected of sympathy with the Mahdi's cause. How- 
ever, Greneral Baker with this force. Joined by five hun- 
dred more men dragged from different parts of Egypt, 
attempted to carry out his indefinite plans of campaign. 
He left Cairo on December 17th for Suakim which he 
proposed to make the base of his operations. He was 
given supreme militar}^ and civil command, with the 
power of life and death. 

Probably no general ever proceeded on an expedition 
with an army less trustworthy and plans less definite than 
those of Baker-Pasha. For this he is not to lie l)lamed. 
In consentino; to assume the chief command he acted 
solely from a sense of duty, and for six weeks he labored 
incessantly to drill, discipline, and fashion into the sem- 
blance of an army the heterogeneous elements composing 



Tlie JBritish Campaign in tlie Soudan. 175 

liis command. His original purpose liad been to move 
first to tlie relief of Sinkat. 

" The first march was to have been made to the foot of the hills seventeen miles 
away ; on the second the forces would enter the hills by a pass three miles long, 
ending in a narrow gorge at the place were two hundred Egyptian troops had been 
killed. The latter point was to be temporarily fortified and garrisoned by two 
hundred men and two guns. The troops would after this get on open ground, and 
arrive at Sinkat by a long march of twenty-two miles. They would rest one day 
and on the next take off all the women and children from the town and return by 
four marches to Suakim, evacuating on their way the fort at the head of the pass, 
because there is no water there and consequently the post could not be held per- 
manently. IJut Tokar was thrice attacked by the rebels before this plan could be 
carried out, and General Baker was directed to relieve that place at all hazards. 
This determination abandoned Sinkat to its fate. For a fortnight the garrison 
had been eating roots and tree leaves. It was an enfeebled band indeed which 
sortied to die amid the rebel hordes. Tewfik-Bey had harangued his men, saying 
that by fighting they might save themselves, but that by remaining they must die 
from hunger in a few days ; flight was impossible. The men thus animated with 
Tewfik-Bey 's spirit, destroyed the military stores, exploded the magazine, filled 
their pouches to the utmost with cartridges, and issued forth, six hundred strong, 
against the rebels. 

" Osman Digma's hordes rushed to the attack. Tewfik-Bey and his men fought 
nobly, For a long time they repulsed every attempt to break their ranks. Finally 
superior numbers prevailed, and with a tremendous rush the rebels burst through 
one of the sides of the Egj'ptian square. A general massacre ensued, and not a 
soul escaped. According to the latest reports only four sick men, who were un- 
able to take part in the sortie, the Cadi of Sinkat, and thirty women were spared 
by the rebels." 

This disaster occurred on tlie lltli of February, 188-i. 

On the 2d, Baker had sailed from Suakim and landed 
at Trinkitat, about fifty miles south. Thence to Tokar, 
the distance is only twelve to fifteen miles. This town, 
already noted for the defeat and death of Consul Mon- 
crieff in Nov. 1888, was a small fortified post on a 
diminutive fresh-water creek which falls into the sea at 
Trinkitat. Baker began his advance from his intrench- 
ments at that place on Sunday, Feb. 3d, with nearly 4,000 
men, four Krupps and two Gatling guns. He had 
sent from Suakim to Caii'o an urgent request for rifles to 



176 TJie British Campaign in the Soudan. 

replace tlie old muskets witli wliicli numbers of Ms 
troops were armed. In I'eply he received orders to try 
to force his way to Tokai- without delay, and with the 
English officers connected with the expedition he began 
the march, expecting defeat. The spies had falsely re- 
ported that the roads were clear with the exception of 
small bands of rebels. On Monday forenoon a portion 
of the advance was attacked on the march, and the fight 
was begun by a few Arab horsemen charging upon 
Baker-Pasha's cavalry which fled. Baker then formed a 
square which the enemy surrounded. The Bashi-baz- 
ouks then fled in confusion, and the gunners deserted 
their guns. Baker-Pasha was several times surrounded 
by the enemy, but, with his staff, managed to cut his way 
through. All the camels, baggage, and artillery were lost 
in the battle. Most of the Egyptian officers and men 
bolted. Col. Sai'torius tried hard to rally them, but with- 
out success. The Europeans behaved splendidly. Col. 
Sai-torius narrowly escaped with his life. The enemy 
pursued almost into Trinkitat. The Europeans, police, 
and Turkish infantry were cut to pieces. Twenty-five 
hundred men were killed, including fourteen European 
officers. No mention is made of the wounded, for none 
survived except those who were able to i-etreat with the 
routed army. Baker, with the remnant of his force, suc- 
ceeded in reaching Trinkitat, where they re-embarked on 
the British gunboats and returned to Suakim. This 
event took place just at the very time that Gordon was 
speeding on his wa}^ to Khartoum across the Korosko des- 
ert. The news met him at Berber, from which place he 
telegraphed that in spite of Baker's defeat he was still 
confident of success, 

% 



The British Gampaign in the Soudan. 177 

Meanwliile Osman-Digma, reiuforced' by tlie couquer- 
ors of Sinkat, continued the siege of Tokar, wliicli lie 
ca])tured on the 21st. He then blockaded Suakim coni- 
])letely on the land side and harassed its garrison by 
nightly attacks. His double success had gained him the 
accession of the Bedouin tribes occupying the country 
between Suakim and Berber, who until then had been 
undecided which side to take. The capture of 4,5(M> 
rifles and ten guns (including those taken in Tokar), with 
abundance of ammunition, helped him materially in his 
subsequent battles against Gren. Graham. 

In the meantime Gordon had reached Khartoum and, 
as we have seen, had found the situation far diiferent 
from what he had expected. His efforts were now con- 
centrated upon strengthening the defences of Khartoum, 
avowing his purpose of retaining its permanent posses- 
sion. By this means he hoped to secure the safe retreat 
of the garrisons in the far south. He was willing to 
abandon the country west of the A¥hite Nile and south 
(^f Khartoum, but he was hrmly convinced of the al>so- 
lute necessity of retaining possession of the Eastern 
Roudan. His views, as expressed before he left London, 
were so judicious and so forcibly expressed that I quote 
them here : 

"On 'Chinese' Gordon's arrival in England he was interviewed Ijy a corre- 
spondent of the Pall Ala II Gazette on the situation in the Soudan. The following 
is a transcript of Colonel Gordon's remarks ; 

" So you would abandon the Soudan ? But the Eastern Soudan is indispensable 
to Egypt. It will cost you far more to retain your hold upon Egypt proper if you 
abandon your hold of the Eastern vSoudan to the Mahdi or to the Turk, than what 
it would to retain your hold upon the Eastern Soudan by the aid of such material 
as exists in the provinces. Darfur and Kordofan inust be abandoned. That I ad- 
mit ; but the provinces lying to the east of the White Nile should be retained, and 
north of Sennaar. The danger to be feared is not that the Mahdi will march 
northward through Wadi Haifa ; on the contrary, it is very improbable that he will 



178 Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 

ever go so far north. Th'e danger is altogether of a different nature. It arises 
from the influence wliich the spectacle of a conquering Mohammedan power, 
established close to your frontiers, will exercise upon the population which you 
govern. In all the cities of Egypt it will be felt that what the Mahdi has done, 
they may do ; and, as he has driven out the intruder and the infidel, they may do 
the same. Nor is it only England that has to face this danger. The success of 
the Mahdi has already excited dangerous fermentation in Arabia and Syria. Pla- 
cards have been posted in Damascus calling upon the population to rise and drive 
out the Turks. If the whole of the Eastern Soudan is surrendered to the Mahdi 
the Arab tribes on both sides of the Red Sea will take fire." 

A.s to tlie provinces to be abaudoiied, Gordon's plan 
was to turn them over to tlie descendants of their ancient 
sultans. But this idea was altogether impracticable. In 
three generations those families had sunk into obscurity^ 
and ih.^ new rulers would l)e slave-hunting chiefs like 
Zobehr-Pasha, Osman-Digma, and Abou-Saoud. Or else, 
the Mahdi, who announced his mission to be the exter- 
mination of all Turks and foreigners and the conquest of 
the country down to the sea, would establish an empii-e 
so strong and aggressive as to be a permanent and formi- 
dable menace to Egypt. 

Up to this time nothing had been done to nullify the 
repeated declaration that no British troops would be 
sent to the Soudan. But Gordon had been in Khartoum 
just one day when 5,000 British soldiers, under the com- 
mand of General Sir Gerald Graham, sailed from Suez 
for Suakim on the 19th of Fel^ruary, 1884, and attacked 
the Mahdi's lieutenant, Osman-Digma, at the very moment 
when Gordon, in pursuance of his instructions, proclaimed 
his mission to be one of conciliation, and offered the 
Mahdi peace and recognition ! 

Why this contradictory course of action ? If England 
had no interests in the Soudan, why was Graham sent 
there ? Not to relieve Sinkat or Tokar ; it was too late 



The British Campaign in the Souclan. 179 

for tliat. Not to defend Suakim, for oue battalion and 
two gunboats were amply sufficient, and Admiral Hewett 
was at that time commander of tliat post, with 500 
marines and several war-ships. Then what for 'i To 
avenge the death of Moncrieff and Hicks-Pasha in No- 
vember and Baker's recent defeat ? But these were 
purely Egyptian disasters in which England had dis- 
claimed all responsibility or concern. Moncrieff had left 
his legitimate consular duties to volunteer with an Egyp- 
tian expedition, and Baker was no longer a British, but 
an Egyptian officer, as were Hicks and his comrades, and 
certainly England's honor was in no way affected by their 
disasters. AVhy then attempt to avenge them by waging 
war on the Red Sea while proclaiming peace on the 
White Nile ? This action of the British government can 
be attributed only to the incredible vacillation which 
seemed to pervade all their Egyptian policy, or else to a 
spirit of " Jingoism " which assumed that England's 
honor demanded that she should avenge Egy[>tian disas- 
ters merely because Englishmen had been in command, 
while yet refusing to admit that this national honor was 
most deeply involved in shielding from harm an ally 
whom she had tied hand and foot under the guise of 
protection. The double-dealing course now adopted was 
certain to defeat the avowed object of Gordon's peaceful 
mission, and to expose his life to the most imminent peril. 

Accordingly, immediately after Grraham's invasion, we 
find Gordon attacked at Khartoum and asking most ui'- 
gently that British, Indian, or Turkish troops be sent to 
his support. 

I will here present an outline of Graham's campaign, 
which, from the nature of the case, is necessarily drawn 



180 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

from Britisli official reports and the accounts of Englisli 
war-press correspondents.* 

On the 28tli of February, 1884, General Graham 
landed at Trinkitat with 4,000 effective men, and on the 
29th he attacked Osman-Digma's position at Teb, about 
eight miles from the sea. The British were formed in 
one square with cavalry covering the front and guns at 
the angles. They advanced with a degree of caution fai- 
greater than would have been displayed before a civilized 
foe, and the desperate fighting of the Arabs showed that 
this caution was well timed. The weak intrenchments, 
armed with the captured guns, were not carried until 
after four hours of stubborn conflict. Osman-Digma's 
forces were estimated at about 10,000 men, of whom not 
more than one fifth were armed with Remington rifles. 
The rest were supplied with scimetars and spears. But 
neither the rifles nor the guns under the Arabs' manipu- 
lation caused any great loss among the British. The 
wounds were chiefly received at close quarters during the 
fanatical charges or rushes upon the troops. 

" The rebels were in no military order, but were scattered here and there, so as 
to take advantage of the abundant cover which the ground afforded. They clung 
to their position with desperate tenacity. There were 2,000 rebels directly in front, 
while many hundreds hung around the two sides of the square. 

" As the British moved forward, firing as they advanced, the rebels, armed with 
spears and huge cross-hilted swords, rose within two hundred yards of the advancing 
lines and rushed against the British at breakneck speed, heedless and fearless of 
death. They fell right and left, though some of the brave fellows reached within 
five paces of the square. None of them bolted ; they only fell back sullenly when 
they were forced. The British pursued them as far as the wells of Teb, where the 

* It is a matter of regret for the sake of historical accuracy that there are no 
other sources of information. It would be curious and interesting to have the Arab 
accounts and their estimates of the British numbers and losses. Unfortunately 
neither the Mahdi nor Osman-Digma wrote any reports or had any war-correspond- 
ents with them. 



The BritisJi Campaign in the Soudan. 181 

rebels made their last stand. Sheiks who advanced empty-handed, to show that 
they bore charmed lives, were stricken down with bayonet thrusts. 

" The Highlanders carried the next earthwork, capturing three guns. At the 
end of four hours of arduous fighting the British gained possession of the rebel 
camps, of the huts, and the wells. 

" The cavalry on the right flank charged the retreating rebels, who did not bolt, 
but struck the troopers who rode among them, giving blow for blow. A splendid 
display of heroism was made by three mounted rebels. They resolutely maintained 
their ground against the shock of two cavalry regiments before being cut down. 
They continued to fight after the third charge, killing several soldiers and wound- 
ing Colonel Barrow with their spears. The enemy retired very slowly, and in con- 
sequence of this the British kept up their firing for a long time after the fortunes 
of the day had been decided. 

" All advices concur in acknowledging that the Arabs fought with desperate 
bravery. Osman Digma brought 12,000 men into the field. The most of these 
took part in the charge against the British lines. During the entire battle the 
Arabs' want of organization and regular discipline constantly exposed them to the 
deadly effect of the continuous fire which the British poured upon them hour after 
hour." 

The British loss Avas stated at 24 killed and 147 
wounded, and the Arab loss at 2,000. These figures de- 
_scribe more eloquently than words the reckless bravery 
of these sons of the desert, charging with naked breasts 
and only sword and spear upon the serried ranks of a 
British square pouring into them the murderous fire of 
breech-loaders and machine-guns. 

On the day following the battle of Teb, Gen. Graham 
entered the ruins of Tokar and recovered the guns lost 
by Baker-Pasha one month before ; after which he re- 
embarked his troops and returned to Suakim to operate 
against Osman-Digma, who had rallied his forces near 
that place. 

Suakim derives its importance from being the best sea- 
port on the Red Sea, and the terminus of the great 
caravan route which leaves the Nile at Berber and brings 
to the sea-board the trade of the Soudan. Its population 
is about 5,000. The government buildings and the best 



182 The British Oawtpaign in the Soudcm, 

portion of tlie town are built of white coral rock upon a 
coral island, separated by a channel 200 yards in width 
from the 'mainland on which are the suburbs, bazars, 
etc. A narrow causeway serves as communication be- 
tween the town and the mainland. The only supply of 
water is brought on donkeys and camels from very in- 
different wells some two miles distant ; but since the 
British established a garrison they have been supplied 
with condensed water from their steamers. A line of 
earthworks has also been erected to cover the wells. The 
island-town, if defended b}^ a gun-boat on each side of 
the causewa}^, is perfectly impregnable to any attack that 
the Bedouins could make against it, but the suburbs had 
been continually harassed by Osman-Digma since August, 
1883. He had now concentrated his forces at Tamai 
wells, only eleven miles from Suakim. 

On the 12th of March Gren. Graham advanced to attack 
him. The difficulty of securing a sufficient provision of 
water for even that short distance rendered his move- 
ments very slow. He bivouacked that evening within 
two miles of the enemy who kept up a desultory fire 
during the night. The British left their bivouacs at 
8 o'clock, marching in two squares of one brigade each, 
about 900 yards apart. This is a summary of the British 
accounts of the battle. 

" They moved in echelon, the Second brigade leading. This brigade was com- 
posed of the Forty-second, Sixty-fifth, Royal Marines, and Naval Brigade, v\dth 
Gardners and Catlings. The First brigade comprised the Eighty-ninth, Gordon 
Highlanders, Sixtieth Rifles, vs'ith Royal Artillery nine and seven-pounder batte- 
ries, and Royal Marines. As the Second brigade moved off to the left or southerly 
direction, led by General Davis, it was joined by General Graham and his staff. 
We could plainly see the enemy ranged all along the hills on our front and right. 
Their black skins stood out boldly against the glare of day. Some were within 
twelve hundred yards. 

" Meanwhile the cavalry, which had taken up a position on our left rear, sent 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 1 83^ 

forward two squadrons, together with the Abyssinians, to skirmish. These were 
quickly engaged, and a hot fire was soon raging. The enemy coming on. the skir- 
mishers fell back, and the Second brigade advanced seven hundred yards, firing as 
they went. The troops had opened out nearly into line, their rear to a great extent 
being covered by the First brigade, which was half a mile away on our right. As 
we gained the edge of the nulla the fire became very hot from our side, the enemy 
mostly contenting themselves by attempting to rush at us with their spears and 
swords. Our men could not easily be got, despite trumpet calls and officers'' 
shouts, to reserve their fire and aim carefully. In a few minutes our line was ob- 
scured by dense smoke from our own rifles, and under cover of this the enemy 
crept up the sides of the nulla, and a succession of rushes by our brave and reso- 
lute foes was made at the troops. The Sixty-fifth, who were on our right, marines 
on their left, and Forty-second on extreme left, were nearest to the brink .of the 
nulla, which, on their front, made a bend inward toward them. The enemy appear 
to have gathered there one thousand strong. Creeping up under cover of the 
smoke and sloping ground, they dashed at the marines and Sixty-fifth. A hundred 
swarthy Arabs came bounding over the rocks up the 'plain, spear and sword in 
hand. Half Mere instantly shot down, but thirty or forty were able to throw them- 
selves upon our bayonets, giving and receiving fearful wounds. 

" Quick as lightning the rush increased, and in less time than it takes to tell the 
Sixty-fifth gave way, falling back upon the marines. The bulk of the regiment 
crowded in upon the marines, throwing them in disorder, and back everybody was- 
borne in a confused mass, men and regiments being inextricably mixed up. Gen- 
-eral Graham and his staff tried their best to hold and rally the men, and General 
Davis and all the officers labored to get the troops to stand their ground in an or- 
derly way. A large force of rebels charged down ixpon the Second brigade like 
men inflamed with desperate ferocity, shouting and yelling and utterly heedless of 
death, and succeeded in capturing all the Catlings and Gardners belonging to the 
brigade, which was driven back eight hundred yards. 

"By this time the fire from the First brigade on our right as well as front, 
and the cavalry on our left, held the Arabs, and the oflicers succeeded in checking 
the retreat ; the Black Watch, who were fairly in hand, and a portion of the 
marines largely assisting in stopping what might have been a much more serious 
disaster. The brigade was reformed, and the men who had got out of their regi- 
ments were sent into their own lines again. I must revert to the way in whicli 
several hundreds of marines and Highlanders fought back to back, firing and re- 
tiring in excellent order. They were over two hundred yards to the brigade front 
when it was halted and reformed, and to their great coolness and steadiness is 
largely due the final success of the day. 

" The troops being rallied, Gen. Graham immediately ordered a bayonet-charge, 
the gallant troops went for the enemy, and a fearful hand-to-hand fight ensued for 
the possession of the guns, which the British finally succeeded in recapturing. 
Following up their advantage, they continued to press the rebels, who would not 
run, but continued to retire slowly, striking blow for blow, until they were driven 
beyond their camp, when Gen. Graham ordered a halt, quickly followed by a for- 



184. The British Ckcntpau/N in the Soudan. 

ward movement. zVs the British advanced, men sprang up sometimes within two 
hundred yards of them, armed with spears and brandishing a huge shield. These 
would charge down upon the British ranks without hesitation, at breakneck speed, 
until the latter's bullets laid them low. The British stormed up the works where 
the rebels were in force. The gallant blacks, with no thought of flight or surren- 
der, held out their spears and shields against bullets and bayonets until the trenches 
all around were like one grave. 

"The next objective point was the second intervening ridge, eight hundred 
yards off. The red granite boulders and rocks were rugged and sharp and hot, 
and the march was a most trying one. With a cheer the men took the first ridge, 
firing, as they went along, occasional shots at the enemy's main, body, whom we 
could see gathered on our right on the second ridge. The^ Arab's fire in reply to 
ours was feeble and wild, and they soon, began trotting off towards the mountains 
as we advanced. Gen. Graham, with a portion of his staff, directed the advance, 
and, with a ringing cheer, we carried the second ridge, the defence of which was 
insignificant. Gaining the top, we saw in the valley Tamai', one hundred and 
eighty feet below, the tents and huts composing the camp of Osman Digma. There 
were very few Arabs about, and of these the troops soon made short work. The 
Arabs retired before the English slowly and sullenly. They were defeated, but 
not put to rout. They walked away as if sauntering through a bazaar, with arms 
folded or swinging at their sides. They were often shot down, but this did not 
hasten their companions' speed. It was impossible to take prisoners. The 
wounded Arabs would lie motionless, without uttering a single cry or moan, and 
watch their chance to stab the advancing British with knife or spear. The victors 
walked among the wounded as among so many vipers. A wounded Arab killed a 
British marine during the night. Another attempted to stab Colonel Herbert 
'Stewart while his aide-de-camp was giving the wounded man water. 

" The rebels entered the second square upon their hands and knees, beneath the 
muzzles of the Gatling guns. They then commenced slashing with their weapons, 
doing terrible execution. The British were no match for the rebels at close 
quarters. " 

After four hours' lighting the Bedouins sullenly retired 
from the field and the battle of Tamai was won. 

The British loss was one hundred killed and one hun- 
dred and fifty wounded. The Arab loss was estimated 
at over two thousand. 

After the battle, Osman's camp was burnt, and the 
British returned to Suakim the next day. They were 
victorious, but it had been a very narrow escape ; for, if 
the First Brigade had been broken like the Second, none 



Tlie British 0(mipaig)i in tlie Sovdrm. 185 

but the mounted meu could ever have cut their way back 
to Suakim. 

This retreat, after a victory, illustrates the peculiar dif- 
ficulties of warfare in the Soudan. It was impossible to 
pursue the Arabs among the foot-hills, where the British 
could not retain their formation in squares, and where 
the enemy could lie in ambush in every ravine. In fact, 
if the Arabs had avoided battle on the plain from the 
first, and had drawn the British into the hills, the result 
might have been very different. But the insuperable dif- 
ficulty was the want of water. Not one drop could be 
found in the hills or on that arid plain scorched by trop- 
ical heat, so that the retreat was inevitable. It will be 
seen further on how the Bedouins manage to supply 
themselves with water where Europeans would perish 
f(^r want of it. 

The expectation entertained that the Arabs would be 
discouraged by their heavy losses at Teb and Tamai was 
quickly dispelled. Osman-Digma reoccupied his former 
position as soon as the British retired, and harassed them 
in their lines around Suakim by nightly alerts. General 
Graham, hoping to crush him by a final defeat, made a 
second advance. His purpose was to attack Osman's 
position at the wells of Tamanieb, a short distance beyond 
Tamai. Several days were consumed in establishing a 
water depot half-way, and the difilculty of the under- 
taking may be imagined when it is known that every 
drop had to be brought in goat-skins on camel-back from 
the condensing steamers in the harl)or oi" the brackish 
wells outside of the town. On the 24th of March the 
troops moved out from their camp, and l)efore they had 
advanced eight miles, one fourth of the soldier gave out 



186 Tlit British Campaign in the Soudan. 

entirely, and were left behind, and another fourth dropped 
to the rear exhausted, following as best they could after 
being relieved of theii' guns and cartridge-belts which 
were packed on camels. On that plain the thermometer 
rises to 120° or 130° in the sun in March every day, 
(150° or 160° in July and August), and this terrible 
heat which Europeans cannot withstand, is just enough 
to make the Bedouins feel comfortable. This and the 
absolute lack of water are some of the points completely 
overlooked by those who find it so easy to plan and crit- 
icise campaigns from the " Horse-Guards " in London or 
the Head-quarters at Cairo. It is certain that if Osman- 
Digma had known to what helpless condition the fear- 
ful heat had reduced the British column on that 
march, he would have attacked it then and there, and a 
naassacre like that of Hicks-Pasha would have occurred. 
But unconscious of this circumstance, and warned by his 
experiences at Teb Tamai, he had resolved to avoid 
another encounter with the British on the plain, and to 
draw them into the hills. Accordingly, his forces slowly 
retired, skirmishing: from a distance, inflictino- no loss and 
suffering but little. On the 26th, starting very early 
fi'om their water-depot, the British reached the wells of 
Tamanieb, where the men and horses slaked their thirst. 
This slight skirmish was magnified into a battle, and the 
English papers announced in big capitals the capture and 
destruction of the " toivn of Tamanieb," when, in fact, 
this was the name of the wells ; for no town was ever 
built on the desert. What was burnt was Osman's camp 
of brush huts, such as he would leave behind him at 
every change of position. The most valuable object 
<captured at Tamanieb, as stated by the English papers, 

% 



The Britisli' Campaign in the Soudojn. 187 

was Osman-Digma's fiying-pau, which had the honor of 
being sent to England as a trophy. On the following day, 
General Graham returned to Suakim with all his forces, 
and on the 1st of April he re-eml)arked, leaving only a 
battalion of marines and some war-vessels to hold the 
place, and declaring the campaign to be at an end. 

Yes, it was at an end ; but not because its object had 
been accomplished, or because Osman-Digma was con- 
quered, but because it was evidently impossible to con- 
tinue it. General Graham was too skilful a soldier not 
to know that his troops could not follow the enemy under 
a torrid sun and through waterless deserts and moun- 
tains, and that if they remained at Suakim during the 
summer, the climate would destroy them. But the de- 
parture of the British was inevitably construed as a tri- 
umph for the Mahdi's cause. All the wavering tribes 
joined his standard, and from that time forward Suakim 
was closely blockaded, if not besieged, from the land-side. 

Meanwhile the news of Graham's invasion had reached 
Khartoum and neutralized all the effect of Gordon's 
peaceful protestations. Before the middle of March he 
was attacked at Khartoum, and then began that won- 
drous defence, whose details will probably never be fully 
known, since its hero has perished. Never was there a 
brighter illustration of the power of a strong will and an 
upright and noble mind. One man alone, forsaken by 
his government, without help, an utter stranger in ideas, 
language, customs, and religion, was enabled by the mere 
force of his character t(^ mould into a fighting army a 
heterogeneous crowd of Egyptians, Soudanese, and negro 
savages, and to hold them in hand for ten months, under 
hardships and privations, in spite of their natural and 



188 Tlie British Cmiypaigu in the Soudan. 

religious sympatliies all favorable to the Malidi's cause. 
Tlie same wonderful fascination over barbarians that had 
enabled him to conquer the Tae-Ping rebellion in China 
was exhibited here in Khartoum. 

It was not long, however, before he became satisfied of 
the impossibility of rescuing the garrisons, or even holding-- 
Khartouni more than a few months without aid, and he 
made repeated and urgent requests to his government to- 
send him British, or Indian, or Turkish troops, or, as a 
last resort, to send Zobehr-Pasha, he being the only man,, 
in Gordon's judgment, possessing sufficient inlluence and 
force of character to organize a government and prevent 
utter anarchy after his own retirement. Perhaps Zobehr 
did possess the ability, but he was a double-dyed traitor,, 
and at that very time was in secret communication with 
the Mahdi.'''" If he had been sent to Khartoum he 
would undoubtedly have betrayed Gordon to his death in 
revenge for his son Suliman's execution. For once the 
Ministry acted wisely in declining to send him. But 
why did they still refuse to send troops when it became 
evident that without military support Gordon's mission 
must fail and he must become the victim of his own 
heroism ? The following extracts show in what Jight 
Gordon viewed the action of his government : 

" London, May 5, 1884. — Parliamentary documents give a dispatch to Sir 
Evelyn Baring from General Gordon, dated Khartoum, April i6th, in which he- 
says : ' As far as I understand the situation you say there is no intention of sending 
relief here or to Berber. You refuse me Zobehr-Pasha. I consider myself free tO' 
act according to circumstances. I shall hold on here as long as I can. If I can 
suppress the rebellion I shall do so, otherwise I shall retire to the equator and 
leave you the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons of Sennaar, Kassala, 

* This fact having been discovered after the fall of Khartoum, he was impris- 
oned at Gibraltar and afterwards banished to the Island of Cyprus and deprived of 
his honors and emoluments. 



Tlie British Cam.paign in tJie Soudan. 189 

Berber, and Dongola, with the certainty that you will eventually be forced to 
smash up the Mahdi under great difficulties if you would retain peace in Egypt.' 

" The documents include a telegram from Colonel O. H. Stewail to Sir Evelyn 
Baring, in which he says : ' General Gordon has acquainted me with your intention 
not to relieve Khartoum. It is proposed that I shall go to Berber, trusting to the 
success of your negotiations for the opening of the Suakim and Berber route. 
Doubting, however, success, so far as the Berber road is concerned, unless it is 
opened by advancing troops, I am inclined to think my retreat safer by way of the 
equator, and shall, therefore, follow General (rordon's fortunes.' " 

Still the Ministry seemed unable to decide upon any 
course, and Gordon's appeals remained unlieeded. Some 
of them were deeply pathetic. In one of a later date he 

says : 

" How many times have we written asking for reinforcements, and calling your 
serious attention to the Soudan, and no answer came ? Men's hearts become 
weary of delay. While you are eating, and drinking, and resting in good beds, we 
and those with us, soldiers and servants, are watching night and day, trying to 
quell the movement of the Mahdi." 

It certainly seems that a strange indifference to Gor- 
don's fate was exhibited at that time by the government. 
It was officially stated in the House of Commons that he 
had no orders to remain in Khartoum if he found his 
mission impracticable, and that he was perfectly free to 
return when he thought proper ; a declaration which 
seems like bitter mockery in view of his perilous situa- 
tion ; for at that very time a number of non-combatants 
that he had attempted to send to Lower Egypt for 
safety were massacred at Shendy with their escort of 500 
soldiers. After Graham commenced hostilities at Suakim 
in March, there was no time when Gordon could have 
escaped northward beyond Berber, for his steamers could 
navigate no farther, and the insurgent tribes held all the 
country below. A reference to the debates in Parliament 
on this question shows the position taken by the Ministry : 



190 The British Campaign in the Soudan,. 

"On the 1 2th of May the Right Hon. Sir Michael. Hicks- Beach, Conservative 
member for East Gloucestershire, moved in the House of Commons his motion of 
May 2d, that the House regrets that the course of the government has not tended 
to promote the success of Gen. Gordon's mission, and that steps to secure his per- 
sonal safety have been delayed. The honorable gentleman, in making the motion, 
said he did not mean to question the wisdom of the government's policy in de- 
manding the evacuation of the Soudan by Egypt. What he called in question vfa.s 
the present conduct of the government toward that country. He called in review 
the circumstances which led to the departure of Gen. Gordon to the Soudan. 
'The object of his going,' Sir Michael said, 'was to bring about the peaceful 
evacuation of the country. A more heroic offer than that made, by Gen. Gordon 
was never made by living man. Yet when he arrived at Khartoum the govern- 
ment, instead of seconding his proposals, negatived them. With strange incon- 
sistency the government insisted upon a pacific policy in one part of the Soudan 
•and went to war in another part, thereby destroying any chance which Gen. Gordon 
might have had for carrying out his mission. The government was worthy of 
blame for not having sent assistance from Suakim. They have practically deserted 
the brave soldier, the Christian hero, in his hour of peril. This "is the general 
feeling of the entire country. England now demands that Gen. Gordon and those 
who trusted him shall be rescued.' 

" Mr. Gladstone, on rising to speak in defence of the government's course, was 
greeted with hearty and long-continued applause. He congratulated Sir Michael 
Hicks-Beach on his forcible speech, but strenuously denied that the government had 
■deserted Gen. Gordon. Continuing, the Prime-Minister denied that the govern- 
ment had failed to do one single act that was for the safety and success of Gen. 
Gordon. ' The .charges which the honorable gentleman has just preferred against 
the government are absurd. They can only be accounted for by his lack of knowl- 
edge of the true facts.' Mr. Gladstone thereupon referred to official dispatches to 
prove Gen. Gordon's security, and to justify the action which the government had 
taken. He contended that the charges failed to note the fact that Gen. Gordon 
had orders to resort to military force if peaceful measures should not prove success- 
ful. 'The demand of the honorable gentleman,' he insisted, 'amounted to a 
war of conciuest against a people struggling to be free. The war which the Mahdi 
is waging is a war for freedom. Is it that which the honorable gentleman wishes 
England to put down ? ' " 



It is fortunate for Mr. Gladstone that his fame does 
not rest upon the course of his Cabinet in the Soudan 
<|uestion. To err is human, and great as he undoubtedly 
is as a statesman, it cannot be denied that he erred 
grievously in this matter, probably led into mistakes by 
the representations of military men on whose Judgment of 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 191 

professional subjects lie natui'ally thought he could safely 
rely. He must have been himself deceived as to " the 
true facts " when he spoke of " Gen. Gordon's security " ; 
and his statement that " Gordon had orders to resort to 
military force if peaceful measures should not prove suc- 
cessful " seems absolutely absurd in view of the fact that 
he had been sent without a single soldier, that all the 
foi-ce available for active operations had been destroyed 
with Hicks-Pasha, and that Gordon had no force what- 
ever except the garrison of Khartoum, already insufficient 
for its defence, as well as unreliable and wavering in its 
loyalty. Furthermore, if, as Mr. Gladstone said, " the 
Mahdi was waofino; a war for freedom," which Eno-land 
should not put down, what was his lieutenant, Osman- 
Dio'um, fio-htino; for that he should be crushed ? If the 
Mahdi's forces ought not to be opposed on the White 
Nile, why should Graham have been sent to slaughter 
them on the Red Sea ? 

By this time public sentiment had become too power- 
ful and excited to be satisfied by such subterfuges, and it 
compelled the Ministry to organize an expedition for 
Gordon's relief. Its purpose was emphaticalh' declared 
to be, '■'■ Rescue and retire.'''' 

This tardy determination having been reached, the first 
step was evidently the selection of the best line of oper- 
ations, and this selection must be the result of a thorough 
study of the country, all the more necessary because war 
in the Soudan has to be carried on under circumstances 
so essentially different from those prevailing in other 
lands, and which are these : 

I. Outside of the very narrow valley of the Nile the 
country furnishes absolutely nothing for the support of 



192 The British Cmnpaigv in the Soudan. 

an army, wliicli must therefore carry all its supplies, iu- 
cluding even forage for its animals. 

II. There are no roads and no vehicles in the Soudan 
— only camel-trails, and every thing must be transported 
on camel-back. 

III. And most important of all, the Soudan is a rain- 
less, waterless land. Away from the Mle there are no 
rivulets, creeks, or springs — nothing but rare and scanty 
wells at long intervals, or rocky reservoirs in deep ravines, 
like those of Gakdul and Abou-Klea, where the rain-water 
collects during the brief rainy season. Droughts of two 
and three years' duration are not uncommon, and had 
just occurred when I travelled over the deserts on both 
sides of the Mle in 1873, '74, and '75. In such seasons 
great numbers of cattle, and even camels, perish. No 
animals are used for transportation except camels, for they 
alone can travel live days without water, even in sum- 
mer, and on the caravan routes wells are often that far 
apart. Consequently water sufficient to supply men ( and 
cavalry and artillery horses in the case of an army) has 
to be carried in goat-skins which waste a large pro- 
portion by evaporation. From my experience of (5,(K)0 
miles of desert travel I Judge that every 1,000 men, with 
the usual proportion of horses in an army, would require 
500 camels for water alone, and at least 800 more for 
ammunition, supplies, forage, etc. This is what renders 
all long desert routes impossible for a European army. 
If Gen. Herbert Stewart succeeded, not without much 
suffering from hunger and thirst, in crossing the level 
Bahiuda plains (as will be seen later), it was because the 
distance was only 150 miles, the desert less arid, and the 
wells much closer than the average ; besides which he had 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 193 

3,500 camels for 2,500 men in tlie lightest possible march- 
ing order, for his rations gave out on the road. 

This vital necessity of a certain and abundant supply 
of water makes it self-evident that no British army, even 
if no larger than 4,000 or 5,000 men, can operate in the 
Soudan except along the Mle, which is the only unfailing 
supply. 

Had this fact been recognized in time, four months 
would not have been wasted in vacillating about the 
route, and these four months gained would have saved 
Grordon. 

I make the charge without reserve oi- hesitation, that 
the failure of Wolseley's relief expedition was due to no 
other cause than the inconceivable and inexcusable igno- 
rance of the British civil and military authorities in Egypt 
concerning the country which they had virtually occupied 
f o]' more than six years ; surely time enough to have 
-learned all about it. More than this, no greater mistake 
could be made than to suppose that the Soudan was 
a terra> incognita. So fai- from it, every route from Cairo 
to the AVhite Nile has been an avenue of trade and travel 
for a thousand years, and is as well known as was the old 
national stage road between Baltimore and Wheeling be- 
fore the days of railroads. 

Furthermore, at the War Department in the citadel of 
Cairo, occupied as head-quarters by the British staff, there 
is any number of the most accurate and complete maps 
and reports of that region, made by French, English, 
Italian, and American engineers, officers, and explorers — 
some as recent as 1878, and containing the most minute 
information. Most of these documents are to be found 
also in the principal libraries of Europe and America. So 




194 The British Ca^mpaign in the Soudan. 

that ignorance of the geograpliy, topography, and watei- 
supply of the Soudan routes was absolutely inexcusable^ 
especially in a military staff whose first duty was to learn 
these very things. 

There are three routes from Cairo to Khartoum. (See 
the map.) 

I. By the Nile to Korosko, crossing the desert aud 
striking the Nile again at Abou-Hamed. 

. II. By the Nile all the way on or along the river. 

III. By Suez and the Ked Sea to Suakim. Thence 
across the desert to Berber, and thence to Khartoum by 
the river. 

Let us examine them in order. 

I. The first follows the Nile to Korosko, 690 miles 
above Cairo and 100 miles below the second cataract. 
Here it leaves the river and strikes across the great bend 
of the Nile. It is 500 miles shorter than the all-river 
route, but, although one of the most frequented by cara- 
vans, it must be ruled out of military operations, for it 
crosses one of the worst deserts in the Soudan, consisting 
of hard gravel plains diversified with zones of deep sand 
and rocky ridges, without a bush or blade of grass. The 
camels, which find some grazing on other deserts, have 
to carry grain on their backs for their own consumption 
on this one. It is 250 miles across, with only one well — 
half way — so scanty that it can supply only some 400 
camels per day, and so brackish that its name is Moor a — 
hitter. None but camels and Bedouins can drink its 
water. Caravans of 100 or 200 camels cross this desert 
by forced marches, as I did, in seven days, carrying 
drinking water to last from Nile to Nile, but no European 
army could cross it at all. Meeting the river again at 



The British Oampaign in the Soudan. 195' 

Abou-Haraed, the route follows the river or near it 133 
miles to Berber. At tliis point the Nile again becomes- 
navigable 225 miles to Khartoum. Total distance from 
Cairo 1,298 miles. 

The Korosko desert is one of those that the Arabs call 
Atmoors, in contradistinction from the Berreeyeh^ or wil- 
derness in which there is vegetation as well as game, and 
where the Bedouins roam with their flocks, though culti- 
vation is impossible for want of rain. The Atmoors are 
entirely destitute of vegetation, and consequently of 
animal life, excepting only the ostrich and hyena, which 
cross them swiftly by night, and the ever-present vultures 
hovering over the caravans by day. Nothing relieves the 
glare of the yellow sand. The marches are terrible, and 
yet it is worse to halt during the day than to keep in 
motion, for the fearful heat makes rest or sleep impossi- 
ble even under the tents, with the burning sand under 
you and the vertical sun overhead. The Korosko atmoor 
being one of the great avenues of trade, the trail is per- 
fectly well marked by the skeletons of camels, averaging 
over 200 to the mile, by my own actual count. Thousands 
of these animals perish of exhaustion on this route every 
year. The atmoors are generally from six to ten days' 
march across, and are like oceans which caravans traverse 
upon their desert-ships, but where it is death to tarry. 

11. The route following the Nile continuously fulfils 
the paramount condition of insuring an unfailing supply 
of water, but it presents the disadvantage of being the 
longest and slowest of all. From an engineer's point of 
view it is divided into three sections. 

The first, from Cairo to the second cataract (795 miles), 
is travelled every winter by hundreds of tourists in daha- 



196 The British Cmwpaign in tlie Soudan. 

beahs and Cook's steamers, and is as well known as the 
Hudson from New York to Albany. It is navigable at all 
seasons, but always best at liigli Nile. Trans-sLipment is 
made at the first cataract, by the aid of a five-mile rail- 
way around it, but from August to January, small steamers 
can be hauled over it. 

The second section, from the second cataract to Berber, 
and above to Metemneh, where Grenl. Herbert Stewart 
struck the Nile again after crossing the Bahiuda desert, 
has been thoroughly explored by the eminent civil-engi- 
neer Sir John Fowler, who devoted many winters to 
surveying and locating the projected Soudan railroad for 
Ismail-Pasha. ' Nothing can be more complete than his 
report, printed in London, together with his map, accu- 
rately marked off in sections of fifty kilometers, and from 
which the accompanying map is partially compiled.* 
This section, from the second cataract to Berber, is ob- 
structed by numerous other cataracts, rapids, and shallows, 
making its navigation very difficult for all but the native 
craft called nuggars. The difficult}^ of navigating this 
great double bend, or 8, of the Nile is what forces the 
Soudan trade away from the river at Berber to seek an 
outlet at Suakim on the Red Sea. It was sadly demon- 
strated by the tragic fate of Col. O. H. Stewart, in Sept., 
1884. x\.l though the Nile was at its highest, and his 
steamer had passed safely over the fifth cataract (which, 
when I saw it at low watei*, seemed impractical)le for any 
boat), he was wrecked at the fourth cataract, half way 
between Abou-Hamed and Korti, and was massacred by 
the Bedouins with his entire party. Nevertheless the 

* This map was engraved for the Century Magazine, to illustrate my article on 
the'Soudan, in the No. for March, 1885, and its use has been courteously granted 
to the Am. Geogr. Soc. , by the editors of the Century. 

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Tlie British Cahipaign in the Soudan. 197 

entire distance is fairly navigable for tlie native boats 
(larger tban Wolseley's wliale-boats), provided always 
that advantage is taken, as it should be, of the proper 
stage of the ISTile. It is also quite practicable for the 
cavalry and artillery horses, with part of the baggage on 
camels, to follow along the banks of the river, keeping 
abreast with the boats. 

The third section is of easy navigation from Berber to 
Khartoum, and almost equally so thence nearly to the 
great equatorial lakes. The chief objection to this all- 
river route is the length of time it consumes. 

The last route to be considered is the Suakim-Berber, 
and as the mistaken predilection in its favor has been the 
chief cause of the British failure, I will describe it in 
some detail. 

I must lie permitted to state here that in an " Open 
Letter," written in June, 1884, and published in the Sep- 
tember No. of the Century Magazine, in an illustrated 
article, written as early as September, 1884, though pub- 
lished in the Century for March, 1885, and in a letter to 
the K. Y. World oi March 1, 1885, 1 proved conclusively 
that the Suakim-Berber route is utterly impossible for a 
E.'.ropean army, while hostile Bedouins hold the deserts. 
I predicted further that the projected railroad would 
never be built, and that the British would never advance 
twenty miles from Suakim, all of which predictions were 
verified by subsequent events. 

I am not astonished that the Suakim route was the 
favorite with those ignorant of its difficulties. It looks 
so very easy and rapid on the map : 120 miles by rail 
from Cairo to Suez ; 900 miles by steamer, in four days, to 
Suakim ; 250 miles to Berber, which caravans travel in 



198 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

ten days ; thence 225 miles along the river to Khartoum — 
altogether 1,500 miles, and twenty-five days would cover 
the distance. 

Yes, if an army could move over the country as easily 
as a pencil across the map, or even as a party of travellers 
in time of peace, this would certainly be the route. How 
prone are stay-at-home critics to imagine that at ten 
thousand miles' distance they can judge of the routes to 
be followed better than those on the spot. It was just 
so in this case. The journey is all quick and easy enough, 
except that two hundred and fifty miles' stretch to Berber, 
which is an impassable barrier in time of war for an army 
which cannot move in fractions at several days' interval, 
but must keep together before the enemy. This route is 
utterly impracticable for these reasons : 

It crosses a rainless desert, not nearly so arid as that of 
Korosko, but yet affording nothing for the subsistence of 
mea or horses. Though caravans can cross it in ten days,, 
an army .with its materiel would require twenty-five at 
least (the British staff said thirty), if , tliey encountered 
no opposition. Where a caravan can find water and 
grazing for its few camels, an army would jDerish for waut* 
of both. A march of fifteen miles from Suakini would 
bring the army to the foot of the great Arabian chain 
which begins at Suez and runs parallel to the Bed Sea 
down to the equator. Many of its peaks rise to eight 
thousand feet, its passes, or " gaps " being from two to 
three thousand. It is eighty miles across, consisting of 
several parallel ridges separated by deep valleys. Be- 
yond this chain, a plateau extends one hundred and sixty 
miles farther to the Nile, very broken and abounding in 
narrow, steep rocky or sandy passes, where a caravan is 



The British, Campaign in the 8oi(/2an. 199" 

compelled to move in single file. For this entire distance 
the water supply is barely sufficient for small caravans. 

It often happened to me, travelling in the Soudan with 
only two hundred men and four hundred camels (a larger 
caravan than the average), to find the wells I depended 
upon just exhausted by a preceding caravan. I would 
then have to wait from one to three days for the water to 
ooze in again sufficiently to enable me to replenish my 
water-skins, and I would leave the wells exhausted for 
the next comers. 

Now, remembering that General Graham, with four 
thousand choice troops, came so near being destroyed in 
the plain, within fifteen miles of Suakim, it is evident 
that no army could venture to advance through the moun- 
tains inhabited by the most warlike Bedouin tribes,. 
and the deserts beyond, with less than six or seven 
thousand men, requiring for the transportation of water,, 
ammunition, supplies, baggage, and forage for all the ani- 
mals, not less than eight or ten thousand camels. How 
could such a force find water enough when the best wells 
on the route cannot supply over six hundred in twenty- 
four hours ? 

"Suppose that the fierce Bedouins, whose homes are in these mountains, have 
allowed the British, strung out in a long, slender column vulnerable at every point, 
to cross the numerous defiles where a few hundred men could slop a whole army_ 
Suppose the invaders to have emerged without serious Idsses from the mountain 
range out upon the plateau extending to the Nile, and which itself is very rugged 
and abounding in difficult passes and belts of deep, loose sand,— the toughest 
obstacles of all. The worst is yet to come. Water was comparatively plentiful in 
the mountains, and the heat was moderate. But now the only supply is from the 
scanty wells upon the line of march. The Bedouins retreat, destroying the wells 
behind them (which is a very easy thing to do), and swarms of them hang around 
the flank and rear of the invaders to harass them and cut off their stragglers. The 
heat rises every day above one hundred degrees, even in November and December,, 
and one hundred and fifty degrees and more in summer ; in that cloudless land 



200 The BritisJi Campaign in tlie Soxdan. 

there is no shade. The plain quivers under the fierce sunlight, while the mirage 
deludes the eyes with the mockery of fictitious lakes. This is what I experienced 
day after day on the deserts. Suppose now the invaders to have consumed their 
supply of water. If the enemy can cut them off from the A\'ells for three days, 
there is no need of firing another shot. Not a soul of them can survive. It is the 
story of the Roman legions perishing in the Parthian deserts, and of Hicks-Pasha 
in Kordofan. 

" In the ' Waterless Land ' water is the paramount ciuestion. If it be asked how 
a large body of Bedouins, like the ten thousand who nearly destroyed the British 
squares at Tamai, manage to subsist, the reason is plain. In the first place, they do 
not need the enormous trains required for a European army. They are the most 
abstemious of men. Each man carries a skin of water and a small bag of grain, 
procured by purchase or barter from caravans. Their camels and goats move with 
them, supplying them with milk and meat, and subsisting upon the scanty herbage 
and the foliage of the thorny mimosa growing in secluded wadies. As to water, 
they know every nook and hollow in the mountains, away from the trails, where a 
few barrels of water collect in some shaded ravine, and they can scatter, every man 
for himself, to fill their water-skins. On my first expedition, near the close of the 
three years' drought, I reached some wells on which I was depending, and found 
them entirely dry. It was several days to the next wells. But my Bedouin guides 
knew some natural reservoirs in the hills about six miles away from the trail. So 
they took the water camels at night-fall, and came back before morning with the 
water-skins filled. An invading army would find it hard to obtain guides, and even 
if they did, they must keep together, and could not leave the line of march to look 
for water. Besides, the Bedouins, accustomed from infancy to regard water as 
most precions and rare, use it with wonderful economy. Neither men nor animals 
drink more than once in forty-eight hours. As to washing, they tiever indulge in 
such wasteful nonsense. When Bedouins came to my camp, water was always 
offered them. Their answer would frequently be : " No, thanks ; I drank yester- 
day.' They know too well the importance of keeping up the habit of abstemious- 
ness. No wonder they can subsist where invaders would quickly perish." * 

A railroad was proposed as a solution of tlie difficulty ; 
tliis only proved tlie total ignorance of those wlio sug- 
gested it as to the conditions and circumstances of tlie 
case. No one denies that a railroad can be built in time 
of peace across the Arabian chain without much moi'e 
difficulty than across the Alleghany range (excepting the 
lack of water and timber), but even then it would be 

* Extract from my " Open Letter" to the Century, published in the September 
No., 1884. 



Tilt British Ccmijjaign in the Soudav. 201 

a work of a 3"eai' or two ; aud Gordon liad to be relieved 
in a few niontlis, or it wonld be too late, as the sad result 
proved. It seems to have been imagined that the Snakim 
desert was a level sand-plain on which there was nothing 
to do but to lay the rails. Every engineer knows how 
difficult it would be and how long it would take to con- 
struct a railroad over such a range of mountains, through 
which not even a preliminary survey had ever been made 
outside of the regular camel trail. Yet two ridiculously 
abortive attempts were made, as will be seen further. 

I have already charged that the failure of Wolseley's re- 
lief expedition was due to ignorance of the country in 
which it was to operate. Here is proof positive that this 
ignorance was absolutely inexcusable. This Suakim route 
has been travelled by hundreds of caravans every year 
from time immemorial, and every well upon it is better 
known than a corner grog-shop is to all the topers on its 
block. It had been repeatedly and accurately mapped 
out years ago. In addition, one of many explorers, 
my friend and comrade. Col.- H. Gr. Prout, now of 
New York, a most able engineer, twice promoted for 
efficient aud valuable services in the Soudan, and for 
a time Vice-Governor-Greneral under Gordon in 1877-79, 
was sent to join my expedition in Kordofan in 1875. I 
had gone there by the Nile route some months before ; 
he came by the Suakim route, and he was ordered to 
make a detailed map, survey, and report of it, especially 
as to the water supply and the feasibility of constructing 
a railway. The report (which lies before me now), 
printed in English, with map and profile, at the staff 
printing-office, in the citadel of Cairo, contains the most 
ample information (the map and profile accompany this 



202 The BritisJi Campaign in the Soudan. 

paper). It mentions every group of wells on tlie route, 
and their capacity. The largest can supply only 600 men 
and their animals ; others vary from 500 down to 250, 
the average being about 400. I passed over the same 
route the following year, and can confirm from personal 
observation the perfect accuracy of Col. Front's report. 
This document Avas perfectly accessible to the British 
authorities, and a couple of hours' study of it would have 
convinced any intelligent staff officer that the Suakim 
route is out of the question for an army. This informa- 
tion conveyed to head-quarters should have put a stop to 
all the fatal vacillations and delays that followed. Why 
this neglect of a proper and necessary study of the 
theatre of war ? Was it stolid stupidity, or was it conceit 
which took it for granted that what was not already 
known to the British commanders was not worth learn- 
ing ? This blind preference for the Suakim route was 
the paramount and fatal blunder which caused the final 
failure of the relief expedition, for its consequence was 
the loss of four or five months in repeated changes of 
plan, as follows : 

(1) Official announcements published at the time show 
that when Grordon's pressing appeals for help aroused a 
popular sentiment demanding his relief (which was before 
Oraham's army had re-embarked from Suakim, April 1st)? 
this officer was expected to open the road from there to 
Berber ; but he was too skilful and judicious to attempt 
such an impracticable undertaking, and the idea was 
given up. 

(2) At the beginning of May, at the very time that Mr. 
Gladstone was declaring in the Commons that " the Mahdi 
was waging a war for freedom and should not be put 

% 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 203 

-do WD," orders were issued for a survey of the Nile 
route by Admiral Hay, witli a view to ascertain 
its practicability for gun-boats ; — an order ridiculous in 
itself, for the whole course of the Nile had been described 
a hundred times before. At the same time a camel-depot 
was ordered to be established at Assouan (first cataract) 
for the transportation of the expedition. 

(3) On the 11th of June the Suakim route was decided 
upon, and on the 16th engineers were sent there with the 
plant for a railroad, and on July 19th iron-clad cars were 
sent. As late as July 12th this announcement was made 
public : '' The operations for the relief of Khartoum, it 
has been finally decided, will begin early in September. 
Gen. Wolseley continues to advise that the line of the 
chief attack be by way of Suakim and Berber. Addi- 
tional material for the new railway is being sent to 
8uakim. The preparations for an expedition up the Nile 
have been suspended," 

(4) Lastly (Aug. 18th), it was announced officially that 
the Suakim route was abandoned. The railroad material, 
landed one month before, was shipped off to India, and 
the Nile route w^as finally adopted. It was not till after 
this date that boats were ordered to be constructed in 
England, Canadian voyageurs enlisted, and transportation 
and supplies collected. Four changes of programme and 
four months wasted before the fii^st serious preparations 
were even commenced ! ■^'' 

But even after all these vacillations, when the Nile 
route was finally decided upon (near the end of August), 

* It will be seen later that three months after Gordon's death and the fall of 
Khartoum another railroad plant was sent to Suakim, which railroad Graham's 
second expedition was expected to construct to Berber, and which was also sent 
back without being even unshipped. 



204 The British Ccnnpaign in the Soudan. 

tlie military authorities proceeded with as iiincli delibei-a- 
tion as if they had had full control of the seasons. 

It is an axiom that in war, time is an element of the first 
importance. How especially so in a country where military 
operations can be carried on only for a few months of 
the year ! The Nile is as regular as the sun. It begins to 
rise about the 21st of June, rises steadily until about Sept. 
1st, remains at its full until about Oct. 1st, and. then de- 
creases regularly until the next June. It does not vary 
more than live or six days from year to year in centuries, 
and to ignore these facts, known to the world since 
Herodotus wrote, -lOO years b.c, is unpardonable. Had 
the Nile route been decided upon in May, boats could 
have been built or collected and every preparation made 
for the expedition to leave Cairo July 15th, when the 
Nile had been for nearly four weeks on the rise. It was 
perfectly clear navigation to the second cataract which 
should have been reached ])y Aug. 15th. Then, with a 
steadily rising Nile, the passage of the upper cataracts 
would have been easy. Korti could have been reached 
fully four months earlier, and full advantage could have 
been derived from the cool season which is delio:htful 
. in those regions. The fall of Khartoum and the death of 
Gordon are the direful consequences of that fatal delay. 

Nevertheless, late as it was when the final decision was 
adopted, no attempt seems to have been made to compen- 
sate for the lost time. Wolseley did not reach Egypt until 
Sept. 9th, and the camel-corps organized in England did 
not sail from there until Sept. 26th. The whale-boats 
ordered from England did not leave the second cataract at 
Wady Haifa until the 19th of Nov., and altogether the fact 
seemed to be ignored that the Nile was steadily falling,, 



Tlie JBriUsh Cmnpaign in the Soudmi. 205 

and that cataracts and shallows which could easily be 
passed at the right season would become altogether im- 
passable at low Nile. 

Yet the military authorities had abundant warnings of 
the danger of delay, as can be seen by a perusal of the 
journals of that date. Sir Samuel Baker's letter of April 
5, 1884, is so truly prophetic of what followed, that I 
quote a few passages. The italics are my own. 

" In this we see a continuation of tliat spasmodic policy which has characterized 
every operation in Egypt since the first shot was fired at the forts of Alexandria. 
There has been no carefully organized plan, no definite aim, no foundation for the 
edifice of a future ; but a hand-to-mouth series of attempts, each of which has been 
a direct contradiction of our most solemn declarations. 

' ' For the last two years with regretful accuracy I have expressed my opinion upon 
the present and future of Egyptian affairs. Dark as the present may be, the com- 
ing events will be still darker, unless the policy of Great Britain shall be radically 
changed. The country is bankrupt ; brigandage, which was formerly unknown, 
is rampant even in the Delta (seventy-four cases within one month) ; the Soudan 
is in a blaze of insurrection, and General Gordon in a most dangerozis position, as 
by a letter I received from him of the wtJi of March, he doubts the possibility of 
defending Khartoum beyond a certain period. 

" Will England permit this sacrifice ? We have been a grievous curse to Egypt, 
and we are entirely responsible for the miseries and disasters which have befallen 
this unhappy country. It may suit the convenience of British oiificials to pooh- 
pooh the gravity of the situation which they have themselves provoked, but the 
facts are patent to all : the crisis has arrived, and unless iuiinediate preparations 
shall be made for the relief of General Gordon at Ivhartoum, we shall be again too 
late, as -rue were at Tokar and Sinkat. What will be the humiliation of England 
should he fall through the apathy or incompetence of the British Government ? 

" / do not wish to prophesy evil, but I see it. Let the British public awaken to 
the facts of the situation ; England is responsible for the misdeeds of her Ministry, 
and she is the guaranty for the safety of General Gordon, who was started upon 
an impossible enterprise. As we invaded Abyssinia to release a British consul, we 
are bound to deliver our envoy at Khartoum should his retreat be intercepted. 

' ' Not a day should be lost in preparing for this necessity. The route from 
Suakim to Berber can only be opened and secured by Indian troops. 77ie Nile 
will afford the most sectire route from- Cairo to I\hartoum if immediate prepara- 
tions shall be made for an expedition at the first rise of the river in July. I have 
already suggested to the highest authority this plan of advance, which requires the 
most careful but energetic management. Still I have no hope that such energ}- 
will be exhibited ; the apathy and vacillation which have induced a series of dis- 



206 The Britisli Campaign in the Soudan. 

asters tuill stave off the evil hour until one more garrison shall have /teen ovcr- 
po'Mered ; but should Khartoum fall, and Gordon be thus cruelly abandoned, let 
"the Government beware of the scorn of the British people." 

" Apathy and vacillation." The latter, especially, was 
the fatal cause which paralyzed diplomatic as well as 
military decisions. I have already mentioned the Minis- 
try's contradictory course regarding the intervention of 
Turkish troops. Yet in a pecuniary view alone, how 
much cheaper to have paid a few millions to the Sultan 
for Turkish regiments ! Going there as the soldiers of 
the Padishah, the chief of Islam, no religious antagonism 
could have existed between them and the Soudanese. 
They would have appeared as the representatives of the 
lawful head of their religion, commissioned to put down 
a, schismatic, false prophet ; while, on the contrary, the 
British represented what is most hateful to a Mussulman, 
•an infidel and a giaour. This alternative had been re- 
jected. There was another even more promising, and to 
this day it is an unexplained mystery why it was aban- 
-doned. The great empire of Abyssinia is contiguous to 
the theatre of war in the Soudan. Its people are Chris- 
tians of a very rude and barbarous type. They are of 
the same or a kindred race with the Bedouins of the 
deserts, and are equally indomitable warriors. They had 
defeated in 1876 on the plain of Gura an invading Egyp- 
tian army of fifteen thousand regular troops, splendidly 
armed and equipped, which they attacked with the same 
reckless bravery as that displayed by the Bedouins 
against the British squares. The Egyptians escaped an- 
nihilation only by retreat into a large fort previously 
constructed by an American officer (Col. S. H. Lockett), 
from which they repelled several furious assaults. They 



Tlie British Camjyaign in the Soudan. 207 

were glad enoiigh later to conclude a peace, and be al- 
lowed to return to their own country.'^* The Abyssin- 
ians' most ardent desire is to obtain an outlet on the 
Red Sea, from which they have been entirely shut out by 
Egypt. Early in April Admiral Hewett went on a mis- 
sion to King John. It was stated at various times that 
the latter was willing to furnish thirty thousand or more 
men for two shillings per head per day, provided he was 
given the port of Massowah and a strip of territory along 
the Red Sea. It was the very best arrangement that 
could have been made, and it was only a question of 
money, for those people are extremely avaricious. Eng- 
land could have secured King John's co-operation for one 
fifth the cost of her expeditions, and it would probably 
have saved Gordon ; for the Abyssinians, accustomed to 
the climate and the country, woald have had but a short 
distance to march from their own territory down the Blue 
Nile and the Rahat, relieving the garrisons of Kassala 
and Sennaar, and reachinor Khartoum from the southeast 
without difficulty. Why the arrangement was not con- 
cluded is not known. Probably British pride revolted at 
the idea of Gordon's being rescued by an army of barbari- 
ans. The last information on the subject was a dispatch 
from Admiral Hewett, received on the 12 th of June. 

" In this the Admiral reported that his mission to King John, of Abyssinia, was 
•completely successful. A treaty was signed securing free transit from the Soudan 
through Abyssinia to Massowah. Another treaty, suppressing tlie slave trade, was 
negotiated. Admiral Hewett telegraphed also that he had reached the coast of the 
Red Sea, ready to embark on his return." 



* A very interesting account of the Abyssinian war with Egypt in 1874-76 is 
given in " Moslem Egypt and Christian Abyssinia." New York : Atkins & Prout, 
i8So. By Col. Wm. McE. Dye, formerly U. S. A. (at that time on the general 
staff of the Egyptian army), who was wounded in the battle of Gura. 



208 Tlie British Campaign in the Soudcm. 

It is evident that he had accomplished nothing of any 
value, in spite of the assertion of complete success. 

In themeantime, • Gordon had every reason to believe 
himself abandoned by his OAvn government. 

" The Egyptian correspondence shows that the Government refused to allow 
Indian troops to relieve General Gordon, on the ground that India has no direct 
interest in the Soudan. Among the dispatches included in tlie correspondence is 
one from Earl Granville to Sir Evelyn Baring, suggesting that British troops be 
dispatched to Wadi-Halfa to support General Gordon. To that dispatch Sir Eve- 
lyn Baring replied that the military authorities deprecated the proposed movement 
on. account of the climate. On April gth, General Gordon telegraphed that three 
thousand Turkish infantry and one thousand cavalry could accomplish the relief of 
Khartoum, and crush the Mahdi in four months. Sir Evelyn Baring telegraphed 
to Earl Granville that it would be impossible to organize a Turkish force in time 
to be of any use, and that to dispatch troops of the Sultan would involve political 
difficulties. On April 23, Earl Granville telegraphed to Mr. Egerton as follows : 

" ' General Gordon should be immediately instructed to keep us informed in re- 
gard to any immediate or prospective danger at Khartoum, and that, in order to 
be prepared for such danger, he should advise us in regard to the force necessary to 
secure his removal. We do not propose to supply him with a force for tlie pui'- 
pose of making military expeditions, such being beyond the scope of his commis- 
sion and contrary to the pacific policy wliich was the purpose of his mission.' " 

Every pretext seems to have l)eeii used to refuse aid. 
Granville's dispatch is absurd on the very face of it. 
What good could Gordon accomplish by informing him 
of any immediate or prospective danger at Khartoum, 
when it would take four months after the receipt <)f his 
telegraphic dispatch before any relief could reach him i 
And what an abuse of words to speak of " the pacific 
policy which was the purpose of his mission," when Gra- 
ham had just been slaughtering thousands of Bedouins 
on the shores of the Red Sea ! 

Left to his own resources, Gordon made the l:)est dispo- 
sitions in his power. The Mahdi having refused his 
overtures and having attacked him at Khartoum, Gordon 
sallied out against him on the 16th of March, but was re- 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 209 

pulsed iu a hard fight at Halfiyeli, just outside of Kliar- 
toum, by the treachery of two bhick chiefs whom he had 
made pashas, and who were summarily tried and shot a 
few days later. Hayino; exhausted the o-old he liad 
brought from Cairo, he issued Inlls which the merchants 
accepted upon his personal guaranty, as well as paper and 
leathei' money for circulation, and in this way he procured 
funds for soldiers and supplies. He raised an army by 
promising freedom to slayes who enlisted in his ranks. 
He protected that army from the attacks of a suj^erior 
force by planting torpedoes in front of his lines. He 
conyerted his small river steamers into gun-boats by 
plating them with iron and l)uilding turrets on them.* 
But in spite of all his efforts he was already enmeshed 
in the fatal net which he was . doomed never to break 
throuofh. 

By the end of March the whole country south of Ber- 
ber was in a state of reyolution, and Grordon had almost 
daily fights Avith the enemy, and in the latter half of 
April his head-quarters at the Khartoum palace were 
assaulted by the rebels' fire from the opposite shore. By 
the beginning of May the iVrabs, crossing the Blue Nile, 
had established themselves at Buri, a mile from the east- 
ern corner of the entrenchments. At this spot the be- 
sie2:ers suffered terribly from the mines which General 
Gordon had laid down. As early as the middle of April 
Gordon had begun to have recourse to this method of 
disposing of his assailants. On May 7th, nine mines 
(according to Mr. Power's diaiy ) were exploded during 

* They were not over sixty or seventy feet long, and had been brought in sec- 
tions to Berber on camel-back during Baker's governorship. I travelled down on 
one of them from above Khartoum to Berber in January, 1876, and was frequently 
grounded, once, among others, at Shaliluka wliere Sir Charles Wilson came to grief. 



210 TliG British Cairupaign in the Soudan. 

an attack, and one hundred and twenty of the Mahdi's 
men were blown to pieces. 

In the meantime Berber was captured and its garrison- 
massacred, as well as a number of its inhabitants, on the 
26th of May. So closely was Gordon invested that it 
was not until the 25 th of June that he and his com- 
panions had the first news of this additional disaster 
which isolated them still more from the outer world. 
Nevertheless they continued their defence with renewed 
vigor. On July 9th Grordon drove the rebels out of 
Buri (see plan of Khartoum), killed numbers of them, 
capturing quantities of rifles and ammunition, and driv- 
ing the enemy out of thirteen zeribas or stockades, which 
they had constructed on the river banks. Mr. Power's 
diary closes at the end of July, up to which date Gordon 
had lost seven hundred men. He continued the defence 
so energetically that after three months the siege was 
raised. Descending the river in four steamers, with 
troops and cannon, he bombarded and destroyed Berber in 
September, and drove the rebels from Shendy and all the 
other positions that they held along the river. But it 
was impossible for his steamers to navigate beyond Ber- 
ber. He tried, ho~\7ever, to establish communication 
with Dongola, and for this purjDose he sent his trusty 
companion. Colonel O. H. Stewart, Yice-Consul Power,, 
with Mr. Herbin the French consul, twelve Greeks and 
other refugees, in the lightest steamer that he had, hoping 
that the Nile being at full height they might get over 
the cataracts. By wonderful good luck they passed 
through the fifth, but near the fourth cataract the steamer 
struck on a rock, and sank so suddenly that Colonel 
Stewart and his party barely escaped to the west bank 



The 13ritisJi Campaign in the Soudan. 211 

without having time to arm themselves. There they 
were met by some Bedouins of the Monassir tribe, who- 
professed friendly intentions and invited them to take 
shelter in two native houses, where the whole party were- 
ruthlessly murdered, except a stoker and four sailors. It 
was learned afterwards that Gordon, hojDeless as to his 
own fate, had sent Stewart away to save him from the de- 
struction that he foresaw. For a time Gordon's steamers 
enabled him to send foraging parties up and down the 
river, by which means he secured ample supplies for the 
garrison and the people. There is but little doubt that 
if he had thought only of his own safety he might at that 
time have escaped with a small body of picked men, by 
steaming up the river to the equator and taking his 
chances of making his way across to Zanzibar, But 
all his steamers together could not transport over eight 
hundred men, and his departure would leave Khartoum 
and all its helpless inhabitants to the same fate that had 
befallen the people of Berber. It is needless to say that 
Gordon would have died a hundred times sooner than seek 
his own safety by abandoning his post and the people 
who trusted him. 

From that time the cords drew closer and tighter about 
him. The enemy planted along the river the Krupp 
guns they had captured fi'om Hicks and at El Obeid, and 
seriously impeded the movements of the steamers. But 
Gordon's energy never relaxed, and what is most wonder- 
ful, though a great part of the population was disaffected, 
and many of his soldiers deserted him, yet so great was 
the power of his character that the rest remained faithful 
to him to the last moment. How many times in those 
weary days must he have gazed with anxious eyes dow» 



212 Tlit JJritkli Campaign in tlie tSoudan. 

tlie Nile, watching in vain for tlie approach of the relief 
which nevei' came until it was too late ! 

While he was thus continuing his heroic struggle, let 
us see what was being done for his rescue. 

We have already seen that it was not until the 18th of 
August that the Suakim route was finally abandoned, and 
the Nile route adopted, but there Avas still time to achieve 
success, if an energetic effort had been made to redeem 
the precious time already lost. Unfortunately more time 
yet was wasted in useless delays. General Wolseley, 
the hero of the holiday campaign of Tel-el-Kebir, in high 
favor in court circles, and pi'ocl aimed (very erroneousl}?") 
by his admirers as England's only general, was just then 
receiving an ovation in Londou, and he was called in to 
advise the Ministry. Having gained his first laurels by 
the use of whale-boats and Canadian voyageurs in the 
Red-River expedition in 1870, he insisted that the same 
means were absolutely necessary on the Nile. A 
dispatch, dated '' War OtRce, August 8, 1884," was 
addressed to Lieutant-General Stephenson, by the Mar- 
quis of Hartington, detailing the plan adopted for the 
expedition up the Nile for the relief of Gordon, which 
plan was evidently drawn up by Lord Wolseley. It pro- 
posed the use of small boats for transportation beyond 
the second cataract, '' such as were employed in the Red- 
River expedition." 

To this Lieutenant-General Stephenson replied by tele- 
graph : " Small boats proposed not suitable. Can procure 
large amount water transport locally." 

Being a practical soldier, and gifted with the common- 
sense and ability to make use of the means that he found 
a*fc hand, he saw the folly of wasting invaluable time 



The British Campaign in the iSoudan. 213 

waiting for boats to be built in England, while plenty 
better suited for the purpose could be had on the spot. 
But his curt condemnation of Lord Wolseley's pet idea, 
no doubt, cost the lieutenant-general the command of the 
Nile expedition, and unfortunately caused the appoint- 
ment of the originator of the plan ; for on August 26th, 
he received from the War Office the following telegram : 

"After anxious consideration, her Majesty's Government have come to the con- 
clusion that it is unjust to you to ask you to be responsible for directing an opera- 
tion which, after full knowledge of plan, yoii consider to be impracticable. They 
have, therefore, decided to send Lord Wolseley to take temporarily the chief com- 
mand in Egypt. Government highly appreciate the manner in whicli you have 
carried out the important and difficult duties of your command, and earnestly hope 
that you may feel yourself able to remain in Egypt whilst Lord Wolseley is there, 
and assist him with your advice." • 

Lieutenant-General Stephenson promptly replied : 
^' Will willingly remain here as you wish." Thus it fol- 
lo^ved that three months more were lost while the boats 
were being built and the voyageurs were being enlisted 
in Canada, so that it was the 19th of November before 
the first division of the expeditionary force was ready to 
start from A¥ady Haifa, in eight hundred whale-boats. 
Judging from the illustrations in the London Graphicy 
from dra\vings made on the spot, it must have been a 
very brilliant spectacle, the white-painted whale-boats, 
in double file, each covered with an awning, towed by 
steamers, the soldiers sitting comfortably smoking their 
pipes with all the ease of pleasure tourists. It seemed 
like a parade or a review, and must have looked very 
picturesque — mais ce n'etait pas la- guerre. No doubt 
the expedition appeared much more symmetrical, much 
more pleasing to a martinet's eye than if it had been 
transported in the common rough countr}- boats. I am 



214 The JBritish Campaign in tlie Soudan, 

not able to state what was the expense in money of this 
extra-smartness of appearance, bnt I know this : its ulti- 
mate cost was Gordon's life, and the success of the relief 
expedition. How could Wolseley fail to understand that 
no superiority of English boats and Canadian voyageurs 
(which was by no means proved by the performance) 
could compensate for the delay it involved 'i When it is 
remembered that iha advance of the relieving force 
reached Khartoum only three days after Gordon's death, 
can there be any doubt that the catastrophe would have 
been averted by the saving of two or three weeks, not to 
say months, of the time so unnecessarily wasted ? 

And yet, Gordon's situation must have been perfectly 
well known to General Wolseley. In a letter dated Sept. 
9th Gordon said : " We have sufficient money and provis- 
ions to last four months. At the end of that time we 
shall be much embarrassed." 

Another letter, published in the official "Egyptian 
Blue-Book," addressed to General Lord Wolseley, dated 
November 4th, says : 

" I have five steamers and nine guns at Metemneh awaiting your orders. I can 
hold out forty days longer with ease. After that it will be difficult. The loss of 
Colonel Stewart is terrible. I told him to give you all the information possible. 
He had my journal from January 3 to September 10. The Malidi is eight miles 
from Khartoum. Sennaar is all right. ]\Iy journal from September 10 to date is 
on board one of the steamers which you will find at Metemneh. I continue to 
have occasional fights with the Arabs. It is rumored that all the Europeans 
with the Mahdi, including Slatin Bey and the nuns, liave become Mussul- 
mans. Lupton Bey has surrendered. I have sent out scores of messengers 
in all directions during the last eight months. Do not send private letters to me, 
the risk is too great. Do not write to me in cipher. I have none and it is of no 
use. The Mahdi knows every thing. Take the road from Ambukol to Metemneh. 
You need not fear the Mahdi. Both the Greek consul and the Austrian consul 
are safe. The Mahdi has captured a letter from the king of Abyssinia to me. 
Your expedition, as I understand, is for the relief of the gairison of Khartoum, 
which I failed to accomplish. I decline to admit that it is for the rescue of me 
personally." 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 2 1 5 

It was evident from this that Gordon considered it im- 
possible to hold out beyond Jan. 1st at the latest, and that 
Wolseley was aware of it. But even after the start was 
made, Wolseley's advance was unaccountably slow, for he 
took forty days to reach Korti, 400 miles, with only 
6,000 men, while 4,000 more were still below Dongola. 
If his excuse was the difficulties of navigation, they 
could have been avoided by starting when the river was 
high. He was now (Dec. 16th) at the great bend of 
the Nile, where it chano-es its course from south-west 
to north, 160 miles from Abou-Hamed and- about the 
same from Metemneh. He was at last within striking- 
distance of the enemy and might expect an attack at any 
moment. Strategy dictated concentration, instead of 
which he sent oJff General Herbert Stewart, on the 30th,. 
across the Bahiuda desert to Gakdul wells, 97 miles off, 
with 1,150 men and 2,000 camels. Leaving the troops 
there, Stewart returned to Korti and went back on 
the 8th of January with 1,500 more men and as many 
camels. By this time more troops having reached Korti,. 
Wolseley, without waiting to see the result of Stewart's 
movement, sent away General Earle up the Nile towards 
Abou-Hamed, at right angle w"ith Stewart's direction, 
with 2,500 men, while he remained at Korti with an 
equal numbei', entirely beyond supporting distance of 
those two detachments which were now several days'' 
march from him. 

Meanwhile Stewart left a small force to hold Gakdul 
wells— which, by the way, are not wells at all, but 
natural rock reservoirs of rain-water, much preferable 
to wells as Ions; as their water holds out. Thence he ad- 
vanced towards another reservoir at Abu-Klea, twenty- 



216 The British Oa/mpaign hi the Soudan. 

three miles from the Nile, but he found the enemy barring- 
the way, about three thousand strong, in two divisions. 
On Saturday, Jan. 17th, Stewart, leaving his baggage in 
a zeriba, moved his force of fifteen hundred men in 
sej^uare formation, with artillery at the angles. The 
British passed around the flank of the enemy who then 
wheeled and charged furiously upon the front of the 
square. Recoiling from the terrible fire which met them 
there, they turned and attacked the rear of the square, 
where a cavalry and a camel regiment (dismounted) were 
stationed. This side of the square was broken, " owing, 
it is said, to the unruly conduct of the camels, which got 
powder-burned and became unmanageable." The British 
maintained a hand-to-hand conflict with admirable steadi- 
ness, while the other parts of the square and the enfilad- 
ing fire of the artillery did terrible execution. It was 
while rallying and reforming the broken square that the 
gallant Colonel Burnaby, the hero of twenty battles and 
of the " Ride to Khiva," was killed. He had cut down 
one Bedouin and was parrying the sword-thrusts of 
another, Avhen a third rushed past him, turned around, 
and pierced him in the neck with his spear. The enemy 
were finally driven back, leaving eight hundi'ed slain 
around the square. 

By five o'clock the Hussars had possession of the wells, 
where the troops remained to rest and procure water until 
four o'clock of the afternoon of the 18th. With the 
purpose of striking the Nile above Metemneh, General 
Stewart turned slightly to the right after passing the 
wells of Shebacat. 

" Nothing was seen of the enemy until sunrise on the igth, when the troops ar- 
rived at a point some five miles distant from the Nile. The Soudanese were thep 

\ 



Tlie British ikmipaign in the Soudan. 217 

seen to be in great force between our troops and the Nile, and mainly gathered 
about some intervening ridges. General Stewart, however, as the troops had been 
marching all night, determined that the men should not fight upon empty stomachs, 
and called a halt. 

" The troops were promptly dismounted, and the first care of the General was to 
form a zeriba. The camels were unloaded and a fortification was thrown up, com- 
posed pi-incipally of the saddles and baggage. The hospital was placed in the cen- 
tre, protected by Gardner and Gatling guns. All the vi^liile the men were construct- 
ing the zeriba, a hot fire was kept up by the enemy's sharpshooters, who were 
concealed behind bushes and high grass on all sides. 

"Their fire was, on the whole, well directed, and had most disastrous effect, 
General Stewart himself lieing severely wounded in the thigh. Altogether twelve 
were killed and forty wounded here. Mr. Cameron, the correspondent, of .the 
Standard, and Mr. St. Leger Herbert, representing the Morning Post, were also 
shot dead. Mr. Burleigh, of the Daily Telegraph, was slightly wounded. The 
command now devolved by seniority upon Sir Charles Wilson. 

" When the zeriba was nearly completed, the force was formed into a square and 
the advance was sounded at 2 P.M. The front of the square was composed of the 
Naval Brigade and Grenadiers, the right flank of the Coldstreams, Scots Guards, 
and part of the Heavy Corps, and the left flank of the Mounted Infantry, while 
the Sussex Regiment and the remainder of the Heavy Corps brought up the rear. 

' ' After the British force had advanced for about two miles, the enemy also 
began to move forward in two large bodies in echelon. They first directed their 
attack on our right front, toward which they charged, but our men stood perfectly 
steady and delivered a terrific fire into their midst, mowing them down in heaps. 
So telling was each volley that none of the attacking force could get within sixty 
yards of our front line, though they made three desperate charges. Our loss here 
was six killed and twenty-three wounded. The guns were worked admirably by 
Captain Norton of the Royal Artillery, and did immense execution. 

" While one body of the enemy was thus fruitlessly attacking the square, another 
body, mostly on horseback, made for the zeriba. The force garrisoning it was 
made up of detachments of every corps, under the command of T^ord Charles 
Beresford, R.N. The attack on the zeriba was sustained for two hours, when the 
enemy were compelled to retreat before the fierce fire kept up by the garrison from_ 
guns and rifles alike. One man was killed and three wounded while they were 
helping to erect a small redoubt some fifty yards to the right of the zeriba. This 
small work, when finished, was held by Lord Cochrane and forty of the Life 
Guards and Scot Greys, who by their steady fire did much to repel the constant 
rushes of the enemy. 

" The loss of the rebels during the whole day must have been quite 2,000, reck- 
oning both killed and wounded. Among the enemy's forces were many slaves, 
several of whom gave themselves up to the British. They say the Mahdi sent them 
from Khartoum. 

"At sunset the square reached the Nile, and then encamped for the night. 
Early next morning the square mnrched back to the zeriba, and in the evening the 



218 The British Ccwnpaign in the Soudan, 

whole force returned to the river, where strong intrenchments were thrown up. 
The total British loss, including the loss at Abu-Klea, was one hundred and four 
killed and two hundred and sixteen wounded. 

" On Tuesday we moved forward through the villages surrounding Metemneh, 
and on Wednesday morning a reconnoissance in force was made of the place itself. 
It proved to be tolerably well fortified. Some shots were fired from the Gardner 
and Gatling guns, and the enemy answered occasionally with one gun or with rifle- 
shots fired through loopholes in the walls. Very little was, however, seen of the 
defenders, who appeared very unwilling to show themselves. A pleasant surprise, 
however, was in store for the men, as four of Gordon's steamers arrived on the 21st, 
which at once landed five hundred men and five guns as reinforcements.". 

They had left Khartoum about one month before, and 
reported that Gordon had been fighting hard for two 
weeks before they left. No doubt he had sent them for- 
ward to hasten up the relief which he was looking for. 
An evidence of his belief in the hopelessness of his situa- 
tion is the fact that he sent his diaries and other impor- 
tant papers by these steamers, in order that they at least 
might be preserved, and in an accompanying lettei* he 
said that he knew he was being betrayed, but that he 
was powerless to prevent it. 

On the 22d and 23d, Sir Charles Wilson, on Gordon's 
steamers, bombarded Sheudy for two hours with six 
guns, destroying the town almost completely. Several 
villages around Metemneh were also burned to the 
ground, but as it turned out it was a fatal loss of time, 
"for had Sir Charles Wilson started on the 21st as soon as 
the steamers reached him, he might have arrived in time. 
It was not until the 24th that he left for Khartoum on 
two steamers with part of the Sussex regiment, Colonel 
Boscawen being left in command of the entrenchment at 
Gubat with about nine hundred men. Lord Wolseley, 
before hearing of Stewart's victory, had on Monday, the 
26th, despatched a strong convoy to Gakdul, followed on 



Hie British Campaign in the Soudan. 219 

Wednesday, tlie 28th, by the Royal Irish and the West 
Kent regiments. 

When Sir Charles Wilson started for Khartoum from 
Metemneh, his expedition was not supposed to be hazard- 
ous. The report that Onidurman had been captured by 
the Mahdi on the 13th rendered it probable that the 
steamers might have to run the gauntlet of a few shots 
when they arrived at the junction of the Blue and White 
Niles ; but this was not regarded as a formidable danger. 
The vessels continued on their way unmolested, and they 
reached Halfiyeh on the 28th. 

" Here the banks of the river were lined with rebels, who opened fire with four 
Krupp guns at the steamer. No material damage seems to have been done, 
'Owing, no doubt, to the fact that General Gordon had all the steamers protected as 
far as possible with plates of iron and other means of keeping out missiles. They 
•discoveied that the repoit that Onidurman had fallen int ) the hands of the enemy 
was only too true, and from that position also the enemy opened fire. Things 
began to look worse v/hen the enemy was found to be in possession of the island 
■of Tuti, which lies ai the junction of the two Niles, just outside the city of Khar- 
toum (see plan of Khartoum). Still pressing on under a storm of bullets, they 
•came within hail of Khartoum. To their dismay they found that instead of being 
welcomed as deliverers, the garrison of the capital took up the fire from which they 
had been suffering and received them as foes. No flags were flying from the public 
ibuildiiigs in the town, which appeared to be in undisputed possession of the enemy. 
The palace, a well-known building, visible from the river, was to all appearance 
gutted. Finding it impossible to effect a landing in face of the overwhelming 
forces of the enemy, they "were compelled to lelreat out of range, and then 
■endeavor to obtain what information ihey could by communication with the shore 
;as to the fate which had befallen General Gordon. All reports agreed in asserting 
that Khartoum was in the hands of the Mahdi, and that tlie city passed into 
his possession by treachery." 

Five natives present at the time declared that the offi- 
■cers commanding the three steamers left at Khartoum 
took the Mahdi's troops to the main gate of the city, 
where they entered under cover of the night. 

It was ascertained later, with a considerable degree of 
probability, that for several days previous Farragh-Pasha 



220 The British Campaign, in the Soudan. 

(a Soudanese promoted by Gordon) liad been receiving- 
from tlie Malidi proposals for a capitulation ; that he had 
repeatedly pressed Gordon to accept the terms offered, 
which the latter angrily refused to do ; that on the aftei- 
noon preceding the capture, Farragh had again urged a 
surrender, probably showing an insubordinate spirit, and 
that Gordon, yielding to one of those impulses of ungov- 
ernable wrath which were a trait of his character, struck 
Farragh and drove him from his presence. That night 
(26th), Farragh being in charge of the ramparts, admitted 
the enemy within the gates. He soon reaped the just 
I'eward of his treason. A few days after the capture he 
was put to the torture to make him reveal the hiding- 
place of supposed treasures, after which he was hanged on 
the public square at Omdurman. 

For a few days some doubts were entertained as to 
Gordon's fate. The most reliable reports assert that the 
Mahdi had 60,000 men in the vicinity of Khartoum, and 
tliat he introduced a number of his emissaries into the 
city. Those emissaries mingled freely with the native 
troops under General Gordon, and by bribes, threats, and 
a]:>peals to their religious feelings induced them to 
mutiny. Seven thousand of the garrison deserted to the 
rebels, leaving General Gordon only 2,500 faithful 
soldiers. A dispatch of Feb. 17th gives the following 
account of his death, afterwards confirmed b}^ others : 

"A cavass of Ibrahim Bey Ruchdi, who accompanied General Gordon from 
Cairo, has come in from Khartoum. He states that on the morning of the 26th 
of January he heard a disturbance, and came out witli his master to see what was 
the matter. They met General Gordon, with about 20 cavasses and some 
notables, coming out of the inner gate. When the party arrived at an open space 
before the house the rebels met them and fired, killing General Gordon, his secre- 
tary, and some others, and the survivors fled. A few soldiers turned out and fired 



Tile British Campaign in the Soudafi. 221 

at one of the gates, but there was scarcely any fighting, and Khartoum was practi- 
cally taken without firing a shot." •- 

This was followed by a second dispatch : 

" KoRTi, Feb. 17th, Midnight. 
" A messenger attached to the Intelligence Department has come in six days 
from Nasri, a place about one day's journey from Khartoum. He corroborates 
the news of the fall of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon. The regular 
soldiers were marched out of Khartoum into the Njunnit camp, some of them 
being killed by the Mahdi's troops, who fired on them as they left the town. All 
the Turkish — /. t'., Egyptian soldiers were killed by the rebels, who, however, did 
not kill the women and children. The men liolding Tuti Island also fled. The 
Austrian consul was killed in his own house, while M. Nicola, the Greek consul, 
and a doctor were taken alive." 

It is believed that about 4,000 of tlie Greek, Levan- 
tine, and Egyptian residents were slaughtered, but the 
horrors of the massacre that occurred that night will nevei' 
be fully known. 

Such was the trao;ic fate of one of the most chivalrous 
and noble-hearted soldiers that ever shed lustre not only 
upon his own country, but upon the human race, 

Khartoum fell on the 26th of Jan., and Sir Charles 
Wilson arrived in sight of the captured city on the morn- 
ing of the 28th. Before giving up the attempt to reach 
it, his steamers sustained for four hours the fire of thou- 
sands of riflemen, eight Krupps, and several machine- 
guns. One man was killed and five were wounded on 
board the vessels. There was no .alternative but to re- 
turn to Grubat. On the 29th one of the steamers was 
wrecked and had to be abandoned. On the 31st, accord- 
ing to the report of Lieut. Stuart-Wortley (R. N.), the 
other steamer, on which were Sir Charles Wilson and his 
party, was wrecked about four miles above the enemy's 
position, Just below the Shabluka cataract. The steamer, 
while dropp'ng down stern foremost nearly clear of the 
cataract, struck hard, and the rock made a large hole 



:222 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

in tlie bow. She sank to tile level of the deck. Sir 
Charles bivouacked on an island with his party, to 
which were added some 250 fugitives from Khartoum, 
whom he picked up along the Nile. His intention was 
to remain there until relieved. Lieut. Stuart- Wortley, 
with four Englishmen and eight natives, left at dusk in a 
row-boat and floated safely by the enemy's works through 
a few volleys of musketry. They arrived at Gubatat 3 
o'clock on the morning of the 1st. Immediately on re- 
ceiving the news, Lord Charles Beresford, R. N., com- 
manding the Naval Brigade, with the Sofia, one of the 
steamers left at Gubat, manned by British seamen of the 
Naval Brigade, started up the river to relieve Sir Charles 
Wilson and his companions. The steamer moved up 
slowly against the stream, and was not able to get up 
there before Tuesday (8d). It was fired at incessantly 
by the enemy's riflemen, who were estimated to be 4,000 
strong, and a battery of three Krupp guns, at a point 
about forty miles above Metemneh, The steamer was 
almost past the position when a round shot went through 
the boiler, but the vessel went on some 200 yards with 
the remaining steam, thus getting away 500 yards from 
the enemy, whose two guns ^^'^ere in embrasures pointing 
down the stream. The steamer then anchored, and the 
Gardner and the heavy guns were shifted so as to fire 
straight to the front. The enemy were then unable to 
show. above the parapet, and dared not move their gun 
to the only embrasure pointing up stream, but fired 
wildly from the others. Only the guns' muzzles were 
visible, and the detachments in charge were unable to 
point their pieces towards the steamer, because they must 
have exposed themselves. The enemy had neglected to 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 223 

provide a covered way for getting out of their rifle-pits, 
and when any one attempted to leave them, the Gardner 
and the marksmen speedily accounted for him. Lord 
Beresford then anchored, and Chief Engineer Henry 
Bembow, E,. N., repaired the boiler under fire. Fortu- 
nately the missiles mostly went over tlie vessel, the range 
being only 500 j^ards. Sir C. Wilson, seeing a dense 
cloud of steam rise, thought that the boiler had burst. 
He lauded his party, guns, etc., on the right bank, and 
marched down towards the spot, aiding Lord C. Beres- 
ford by his fire. Tuesday afternoon and night were 
spent in the diflicult work of effecting repairs. Sir C. 
Wilson halted for the night a few miles lo^ver dovvn; 
next morning Lord C. Beresford picked the party up, 
taking them on to Gubat. 

" The enemy liad considered the capture of the steamer a certainty, and when 
they saw in the morning that she M^as getting up steam and in sound condition, 
they were in consternation. The steamer went a couple of hundred ynrds up 
stream so as to turn round out of range, and then came down at a speed of nine 
knots. Mr. Keppel put a shell into the centre of an embrasure. The enemy 
seemed afraid to show themselves above their defences, and they must have lost 
heavily by the steamer's fire The whole party at length got away on the morning 
of the 4th. The steamer's loss amounted to one seaman killed, seven men wounded, 
and Lieutenant Van Koughnet, R. N., wounded. Several men were scalded by 
the outburst of sleam. Sir Charles Wilson's loss was two men killed, and twenty 
wounded — all Egyptians, — and four men of the Sussex Regiment slightly injured." 

Gen. Wilson arrived at Gubat Feb. 6th, and left the 
same day for Korti. 

The revulsion of feeling when the news of Gordon's 
death reached London was beyond description. The 
London Times of Jan. 30th (weekly edition), after pub- 
lishing the accounts of Stewart's victory, said in its edi- 
torial column : 

' ' It is a new evidence of Gordon's untiring energy and inexhaustible resource that 
as soon as the relieving e.vpedition touches the Nile, he is ready to offer substantial 



224 Tlie British Cam/paign in the Soudan. 

assistance. His steamers will now exercise a potent effect upon the fortunes of the 
campaign, since they not only increase enormously the striking power of the little 
force encamped at Gubat, but will also enable a helping hand to be held out to 
General Earle as soon as he reaches the navigable portion of the river. In fact, 
thanks to them and the heroic exertions of Sir Herbert Stewart, Lord Wolseley now 
has hold of Khartoum itself, and the military object of the expedition is practically 
attained. The moral effect of these victories, and of the commanding position they 
secure, cannot but be enormous, and any further resistance that may be offered by 
the Mahdi must be of a comparatively broken and ineffectual kind. It now remains 
to make a wise use of the magnificent results attained by the courage of our troops, 
and to see that policy shall in some degree rise to the level attained by our arms. 
Some permanent arrangement must be made for the maintenance of the advan- 
tages 'so dearly bought, and for the enduring settlement of a district consecrated by 
the blood of brave men, and rendered forever memorable by the extraordinary 
achievements of General Gordon." 

Two days later this ven' natural exultation was 
changed into mourning and indignation. A few extracts 
from tlie London press will show better than any woi'ds 
of mine the state of ])ublic sentiment at the time. 

The Times, in its editorial discussion of the last news 
from Egypt, says : 

" No words of ours are adequate to express the mingled feelings of dismay, con- 
sternation, and indignant disgust which have been universally evoked by this news. 
The present situation is the lamentable result of a long course of disregard of the 
elementary maxims, of statesmanship. The country is obliged to confess that every 
thing has been done that could be done to add to the risks of defeat. Advice has 
been spurned, time wasted, and opportunity lost. The splendid valor of our sol- 
diers, which offered the last chance for retrieving the mistakes of policy, was handi- 
capped by the choice of a line of march which was at the same time long and diffi- 
cult and without means of communication and without a base of supplies. By the 
loss of Khartoum, which was his objective point, Lord Wolseley's whole expedition 
is in the air. Concentration of his forces is the first necessity which confronts Lord 
Wolseley. But where shall he concentrate ? The only effective base is Suakim, 
and to make this available, Osman Digma must be vanquished, and the road to> 
Berber opened. General Gordon must be saved or avenged. . The honor of the 
country must he vindicated at whatever cost." 

In another place the Times says : 

" The fall of that solitary figure (Gordon), holding aloft the flag of Erigland in the 
face of hordes of the sons of Islam, will reverberate through every bazaar of Cairo 
and Calcutta. The result will be a long and deliberate abandonment of respect for 
the British Government and its officials bv the followers of Islam. But England 



The British Qampaign in the Soiidcm. 225 

will save General Gordon, if alive, and if slain, will a\enge his death. Woe to his 
murderers, if he has been killed ! " 

Tlie StcDidard says in its leading article : 

"Let none foriiet General Gordon's last act of heroism. Though knowing: that 
X harilU -^aitors in his camp, he stood by the town and people committed to his 
I* ^vge, and sent his only means of escape to help the British expedition on its way 
to his relief. He has won undying fame for his country if only by this act. The 
grievous blow which England has suffered must be met with calm reason, and not 
with panic passion. All party spirit must be dropped, and a resolution taken by 
the whole country that the path of precedence and honor points to a recapture of 
Khartoum. If we shirk this duty, the lives of thousands of British soldiers will 
have to be risked hereafter in trying to retrieve the blunder." 

The Morni'iig Post says : 

" The mouse-trap policy of the Mahdi appears to have had terrible success. It 
seems that the Mahdi's calculation was to lure the British army into a perilous posi- 
tion. The pressing question of the moment is, ' Can Lord Wolseley rescue General 
Stewart's column ? ' " 

On the 6th of Feb., the Times said : 

•' The news of the fall of Khartoum is the worst that has reached this country for 
many years, and the gravity of the situation so abruptly revealed can neither be con- 
cealed nor palliated. Thought serves only to bring home the full meaning of the 
announcement. It matters little whether the event took place two days or two 
months before the arrival of Sir C. Wilson ; the goal of the expedition is in the full 
possession of the enemy : the present operations are at an end. At last the thin 
ice over which the country has been led for so many weeks has broken up, and 
we are face to face with dangers which it is useless to attempt to hide. That the 
mere announcement of the fall of Khartoum should have brought such a complete 
change over the whole military situation is a sufficient proof of the complete un- 
soundness of our military policy, — a policy depending on chance for. its fulfilment, 
inadequate and contrary to the great principles of military science, unable to bear 
the stress of the smallest failure. The expedition has toiled for months up the 
Nile ; it has made a long desert journey ; it has suffered and fought. But the 
present emergency finds it still not in possession of Berber, the most important 
strategic point of all, and the one which, as was pointed out long ago, should 
have been the first objective. If we were now at Berber, instead of at Gubat, 
the outlook would be altogether different.* Berber could be reached in six 
weeks by fresh troops. f How are we to get to Gubat, to Debbeh, or some 
point in rear ? There is surely nothing to be gained by minimizing the gravity 

* Not at all unless the road to Suakim were open. 

f Where from and how? Still clinging to the delusion of the Suakim-Berber 
route. 



226 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

of the situation ; the wisest course will be to accept frankly the possibilities 
with which we are confronted, and to face the danger at once. At Abu Klea there 
is a force perhaps two hundred and fifty strong, with many wounded. At Gubat 
.there are about nine hundred men, with more wounded. Abu Klea and Gubat 
have been made strong enough to withstand any direct attack at present buVa 
neither the provisions nor the ammunition supply can be very large. Theic _-_Jjr^ jhi 
camels, it is true, and there is an ample supply of water. Metemneh is still hei- J^ 
by at least two thousand Arabs, whom we cannot now afford to dislodge, and whose 
proximity constitutes a source of danger under certain circumstances. Tm^o steam- 
ers remain at Metemneh apparently, and have doubtless been secured : but their 
crews may be treacherous, since the stranding of Sir C. Wilson's steamers may not 
have been accidental. One infantry regiment is approaching Abu Klea, marching 
slowly and in detachments across the desert. Another was intended to follow. The 
wells are held by a force little exceeding a battalion. General Earle is somewhere 
near Birteh with four regiments. The dispersion of force which has thus been 
arrived at is extreme, and two courses only present themselves to Lord Wolseley. 
He may retire his whole force on both lines of advance, and concentrate at Deb- 
beh, the strategical importance of which point, in view of a possible advance of the 
Arabs, has been previously noticed. No position higher up the Nile would be 
equally secure. Or he may reinforce Gubat, and pressing General Earle's column 
forward, make the attempt to seize Berber at any sacrifice. The river navigation 
before the flotilla is, however, very diflicult, and weeks must elapse before General 
Earle can count on reaching Berber ; while, with only two steamers available, to 
make the attempt from Gubat appears barely possible. We may expect, therefore, 
thai Lord Wolseley will fall back, if it is yet possible to do so, and measures must 
betaken without a moment's delay to open the Suakim-Berber route at any sacrifice. 
The option no longer exists ; the step must be taken if the military situation in the 
Soudan is to be saved. Berber must be taken whatever it may cost. There is no 
alternative policy of retirement ; the honor of the country must be maintained, 
even if forty thousand men are required. We have been brought face to face with 
a grave emergency, and we must meet it like men." 

This language was a reflex of tlie popular feeling, aud 
indicated a natural, altliougli unreasonable, desire foi- 
vengeance. The government announced that General 
Wolseley would be ordered to capture Berber and Khar- 
toum at any cost, and to inflict the direst punishment 
upon the rebels. Punishment for what, if those people 
were Justifiable in fighting for their freedom ? Gordon 
had fallen by a surprise in a night attack, but this was a 
perfectly legitimate incident of war. The government's 



Tlie British Caiwpaign in the Soudan. ^'2T 

subsequent course made it doubtful whetlier these 
menaces were any more than a stratagem to gain the 
time necessary to calm popular excitement. 

The most important, in fact the vital, question just now 
was whether General Wolseley's forces could be brought 
back safely from their exceedingly perilous position. 

We have already seen that General Wolseley, having 
arrived within striking distance of an enemy who, one 
year before, had proved his ability to put 100,000 men 
in the field, had sent General Herbert Stewart with 2,500 
men across the Bahiuda desert, 160 miles, to Gubat ; and 
at the same time, General Earle, with 2,500 men up the 
Nile, at right angle to Stewart's course. Looking at the 
map, it will be seen Earle had to follow the river 160 
miles to x\bou-Hamed, where it makes another sharp 
elbow, and resumes its north and south direction. 
From Abou-Hamed to Berber is 133 miles, making 
up to that point 293 miles of the most difficult naviga- 
tion, this being by far the worst section of the Nile. 
From Berber, where it again becomes navigable, to 
Gubat, is 150 miles. So that Earle would have had to 
travel 443 miles before he could hope to make his junc- 
tion with Stewart. The latter had taken with him nearly 
all the available camel transportation. Earle took the 
greater part of the water and transportation and could not 
possibly leave the proximity of the river, while Wolseley 
at Korti, with 2,500 men, had no transportation of any 
kind sufficient to move to the support of either Stewart 
or Earle. Wolseley's army was thus divided into three 
fractions of 2,500 men, at the three angles of an equi- 
lateral triangle of 150- or 160- mile sides — utterly beyond 
tactical supporting distance of each other, and this in a 



/ 



228 Tlie Sritish Cam/paign in the Soudan. 

country where the enemy would certainly attack the two 
moving columns separately, and where no supplies could 
be found, except what the troops carried with them. 
A more absolute disregard of strategy cannot be con- 
ceived. 

When Wolseley sent General Herbert Stewart across 
the desert to Metemneh, it must have been with the' ex- 
pectation of opening communication with Gordon. The 
steamers would then have transported Stewart's force 
to Khartoum, and it is to be supposed that Wolseley, 
leaving a reserve at Korti and strongly occupying the 
desert route by establishing fortified posts at the wells of 
Hambok, Abu-Haifa, Gakdul, and Abu-Klea, would him- 
self have moved on to Khartoum. Having then com- 
mand of the river, he could have sent a force by steamers 
to occupy Berber within three days after reaching Khar- 
toum. This shows still more manifestly the absurdity of 
his sending Earle to Berber by the liver some three. hun- 
dred miles, which it would take him over thirty days to 
travel. The reason alleged by Wolseley was to cover 
his flank from a possible attack from Berber, but he 
would have been infinitely safer from a flank or any othei' 
movement, if he had kept Earle with him. Now, how- 
ever, all his calculations were at fault. Khartoum, which 
he had expected to occupy as his new base, had fallen ; 
Stewart's column was en Vaif% and if Earle had reached 
Berber, he would have been isolated there, and in greatei- 
danger than before. The first step imperatively de- 
manded was the concentration of the force so rashly 
scattered. The moment Wolseley was certain of the fall 
of Khartoum, he should have recalled Earle's column. 
We will see that it was not %ntil Feb. 14th that Sir 



Tlie British Cmnimign in the Soudan. 229 

Red vers Buller fell back to Abu-Klea, and the 25tli wlien 
Earle's column was ordered to concentrate upon Korti. 

" In the meantime advices from Gubat, dated February ist, gave gloomy state- 
ments about the condition of General Stewart's little army there. The men had 
been placed on three-quarter rations These, however, had been once supple- 
mented with a dole of beans and some fresh meat. 

" On the 7th, dispatches from Korti indicated a very serious state of affairs at 
the British position near Metemneh. Lord Wolseley telegraphed to the War 
OfHce that a courier who had just arrived from Gubat reported Colonel Boscawen, 
the commander at that place, seriously ill, and that the Mahdi's forces were prepar- 
ing to attack the British camp. The Arabs had several heavy guns, which were 
being gradixally moved up so as to bear on the British camp, and other field-pieces 
were being manoeuvred for the same purpose. 

' ' The main earthworks erected for the protection of the camp from the river 
front had been greatly strengthened, and it was calculated that they would be com- 
pleted that night. 

" The remainder of the royal artillery, with ten guns, including one Gardner, 
had arrived. A convoy had been sent back to Gakdul wells for more stores, and 
had taken forty of the wounded along. 

' ' The force at Gubat on the gth consisted of twenty-six hundred men, of whom 
twenty-three hundred were effective, and several guns. But intelligence was 
received that the Mahdi's forces were advancing from Khartoum to attack the 
camp with overwhelming numbers. 

" By this time Sir Redvers Buller, having arrived at Gubat and taken the com- 
mand, decided to evacuate the riverside fort and retire to Abu Klea, which he con- 
sidered a better strategical position. Lord Charles Beresford, who had been 
patrolling the river with his two steamers, so as to prevent, as far as possible, the 
enemy from erecting fortifications and securing supplies, abandoned the steamers, 
rendering them useless to the Mahdi by removing the essential portions of the 
machinery. (All of them were now destroyed except the three captured by the 
Mahdi at Khartoum, and the command of the river was now in his hands). On 
the 14th of February the whole of the troops marched out, halted for the night in 
the desert, and reached Abu Klea the following day. This retreat was probably 
due to a skirmish on the 13th inst., from which it was evident that the Mahdi was 
sending powerful reinforcements to Metemneh. A convoy of wounded had left 
for Gakdul under^ Colonel Talbot, and, when about eight miles on the road, was 
attacked by a large force of the enemy — part coming from Metemneh and part 
from Khartoum. A sharp little skirmish ensued, but on the appearance of a de- 
tachment of light camelry coming from Abu Klea, the enemy disappeared. The 
convoy met with no further opposition, and reached Gakdul on Tuesday the 17th." 

The gallant Herbert Stewart had died of his wound 
the day before, and was buried at Grakdul wells. A few 



230 TJie Britisli Campaign in the Soudan. 

days later Sir Red vers BuUer retreated to Korti, his 
troops suffering greatly from hunger, heat, and thirst, and 
severely harassed by the enemy. So difficult was his 
retreat, that the English press termed it a miraculous 
escape. 

' Let us now look at the operations of Earle's column. 
This general had left Korti on the 5 th of January oh his 
ex-centric movement towards Abou-Hamed. His progress 
was very slow, his boats finding great difficulty in passing 
over the shallows and rapids. He occupied nearly fifteen 
days in reaching Homdab at the fourth cataract, about 
ninety miles above Korti. The toils and obstacles he had 
to contend with show how utterly impossible it would 
have been for Wolseley to give him any support in case 
of need. While at the fourth cataract, he had a practi- 
cal demonstration of the folly of wasting the season of 
high Nile, for the hapless Col. Stewart's steamer wrecked 
there last September, by striking a rock two feet below 
the surface, was now to be seen high and dry sixteen feet 
above water. It was not until the 24th of January that 
he left Homdab. I quote Wolseley's dispatch of that date, 
which shows how greatly he underrated the enemy's 
tenacity of resistance. 

" General Earle's column, thoroughly provisioned and equipped, comprising 
artillery, cavalry, and camel corps, staited to-day fiom Homdab for Berber. 'I'he 
march is to be made by way of Abou-Hamed. The enemy, which includes ihe en- 
tire fighting force of the Monassir tribe, under the command of Wadgamr, who 
ordered the murder of Colonel Stewart, and the fighting men of other tribes under 
Moussa, are assembled in war order at Biiti. This is forty miles above Homdab, 
the starting-point of to-day's expedition. 

" General Wolseley says that botii Wadgamr and Moussa boast that they are 
determined to give battle. If so, an engagement between these chiefs and Gen- 
eral Earle by Monday would seem inevitable. General Wolseley states, however, 
that the soldiers who go with General Eade are all in the best of health and 
spirits. They regard General Stewart's battle of last Saturday as a glorious vie- 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 231 

tory, are proud of the achievements of their comrades, and are anxious to meet 
the rebels on their own account. General Wolseley declares that the Arabs 
have been depressed by the news of Stewart's victory, and that its effect has been 
so great and widespread that, in his opinion, it may properly be considered doubt- 
ful if General Earle meets with any serious opposition before reaching Berber." 

Why so mucli delay occurred is not fully explained. 
It was only on tlie tenth day after leaving Homdab that 
Earle had accomplished the forty miles separating him 
from Birti. Several days were spent in reconnoitring. 

" The enemy were found to be entrenched for a distance of half a mile at Birti, 
parallel to the river, so as to be able to fire on the boats. Their numbers were es- 
timated at from two to three thousand, though the natives report that there are 
many more. The rapids are consequently to be passed in the following manner : 
On its arrival at the foot of the rapids, one battalion will disembark, march to the 
top of the bank, and establish itself there, so as to protect the passnge of boats. 
The next battalion, having brought its boats safely up, will protect the passage of 
the first, and so on. 

" General Earle's cavalry, while reconnoitring, has found the enemy entrenched 
in a position flanking the river and across the road. Colonel Butler thereupon fell 
back. The South Staffordshire Regiment is on the island of Dalka, waiting for 
the Black Watch (Royal Highlanders). On Thursday, February 7th, the camel 
corps had a skirmish inland with some hostile Arabs, who were driven from the 
wells where the engagement occuired with a loss of sixty killed and six taken 
prisoners. The British troops captured a number of rifles, camels, and cattle." 

Finally, on the 10th, an engagement occurred, which 
ordinarily would be considered little more than a skir- 
mish, but w^hich was called the Battle of Birti or Kir- 
bekan, and is thus related by General Brackenbury, who 
took command after Earle's death. 

" Camp Opposite Dalka Island, Feb. loth. — Having found the enemy in 
position stated in telegram of gth inst., General Earle concentrated Staffords and 
Black Watch here yesterday, reconnoitred the position, and this morning advanced 
to attack it. Enemy held a high ridge of razor-backed hills, and some advanced 
koppies in front, close to the river. Two companies Stafford and two guns being 
left under Col. Aldeyne to hold the enemy in front, we marched six companies 
Black Watch and six companies Stafford around the high range of hills, entirely 
turning the enemy's position, which we attacked from the rear. The enemy's 
numbers were not great, but their position was extremely strong and difficult of 
access, and they fought with most determined bravery. 



232 Tlie British Campaign in tlie Souda/n. 

' ' The Black Watch advanced over rocks and broken ground upon the koppies, 
and after having by their fire, in the coolest manner, driven off a rush of the enemy, 
stormed the position under a heavy fire. General Earle was among the foremost 
in the attack, and, to tiie deep sorrow of every officer and man in the force, was 
killed on the summit of the koppie. The Staffords attacked the high ridge over 
the most difficult ground it was possible for troops to advance upon, and carried 
the position. In this attack their gallant commanding officer, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Eyre, was killed. Meanwhile, the squadron of the igth Hussars, under Colonel 
Uutler, swept round to the rear, and captured the enemy's camp. Our success is 
complete, and the whole position is in our hands. It is difficult to estimate the 
enemy's loss, but their dead are lying thick among the rocks and in the open, 
where, when they found themselves surrounded, they tried to rush through our 
troops. Scarcely any can have escaped. 

" Our advance by river will be continued to-morrow at daylight, and I shall en- 
deavor to carry out your instructions to General Earle, with which I am acquainted." 

A dispatch from Kirbekan says : 

' ' A visit to the scene of Tuesday's battle shows that the enemy's position was 
strongly fortified and carefully protected by screens of stones and rocks. The 
South Stafford Regiment was only able to capture the high ridge by climbing on 
their hands and feet. The ridge is about four hundred feet high." 

" London, Feb. ii, 1885. — The following are additional particulars of General 
Earle's battle on Tuesday : After the British forces had succeeded in completely 
surrounding the enemy's position on Tuesday morning, General Earle commanded 
the Black Watch regiment to carry the enemy's works at the point of the bayonet. 
The regiment i-esponded gallantly to his command. The pipers struck up, and 
with inspiring cheers the men moved forward with a steadiness and valor which the 
■enemy were unable to withstand, and which called forth expressions of admiration 
from the lips of General Earle. From loopholes in the enemy's works rifle puffs 
shot out continuously, but the Black Watch kept bravely advancing. They scaled 
the difficult rocks which lay in their path, and drove the rebels from their shelter 
at the point of the bayonet. Unhappily General Earle fell at this point as he was 
gallantly leading his troops to victory.* 



* When hardly anything else is to be obtained but dry official accounts, it is some- 
what' refreshing to find a a scrap of individual narrative. The following is taken 
from a letter of a private soldier to his mother — published in the Nineteenth Century, 
June, 1885. It illustrates the difference between official 2i\\A actual XyxiXoxj . 

" I read with some interest the account of our little, though important, battle of 
Kerbeka. I see also that, as usual, through all our three campaigns, the poor 
public-forgotten 19th Hussars has no mention, excepting that at captured the 
enemy's camp before their position was taken, with twenty banners, of which 
twenty I am the possessor of on.e. The account of General Earle's death is some- 
what? exaggerated. The real thing is this. . After the whole of the position was 
taken, Earle went up the rocks to inspect a small hut (mud) in which some rebels 



Tht Britisli Campaign in, the Soudan. 233 

" Meantime the cavalr)' pushed beyond this scene of conflict and captured the 
enemy's camp, three miles to the rear of their intrenched position. This manoeuvre 
was accomplished before the Black Watch had succeeded in carrying the main 
position. 

"While the main attack was being delivered, two companies of the Soutli Staf- 
fordshire regiment were directed to seize a high rocky hill which the Arab riflemen 
were stoutly defending. The British sprang boldly to the charge, but the enemy 
clung desperately to their position and disputed the ground inch by inch. But the 
men of Staffordshire were not to be denied, and they finally drove the enemy from 
the hill. This brought the battle of El Kirbekan to a close. From first to last it 
was gallantly contested. 

" The enemy consisted of Arabs of the INIonassir and Robatat tribes. With them 
were numbers of dervishes from Berber. It is impossible to judge of the number 
of the enemy, owing to their extended position and the rocky nature of the ground. 
The corpses of the Arabs who were slain lie in heaps upon the ridges from which 
they were driven by the British charge. The leader of the foe, who was from 
Berber, and several emirs were among the killed. The number of fugitives who 
escaped from the field of battle was very small." 

On Wednesday the cavalry, half of the Cornwall regi- 
ment, and the Egyptian camel corps advanced three miles 
and occnpied a strong position pending the arrival of the 
remainder of the column. 



were suspected to be secreted. He was warned not to do so, but he poked 
his head in at the hole used for a window, put it out again, and beckoned to some 
one below. Again he put his head in at the fatal window, and as he withdrew it 
and looked around again, the muzzle of a rifle was placed close to the back of the 
General's head, and the vagabond inside blew his brains out, the charge coming out 
of the front of his helmet ; the fellow then threw the rifle at him. The man was 
brought out of the house by Major Blade, of the Intelligence Department, and was 
instantly cut into a hundred pieces. There was another house found -with a horse 
and camel, and inside were twenty-six men and their store of ammunition, and the 
whole lot were burnt alive in the house, and blown to atoms by the continuous ex- 
ploding ammunition ; the horse and camel -were also burnt to a cinder ; so that 
really, you see, the General met with his death through inadvertence. He was a 
brave man, and deserves all credit. When our column marched out on that 
eventful Pancake Day, we Hussars scouted away in front of all ; next came the 
poor General leading the infantry, amongst whom was Colonel Eyre, of the 
Staffordshire Regiment, notable in that he rose from the ranks ; and when the 
General gave the order to charge the enemy, Eyre was the first i;p the hill, and 
turning round he shouted, ' Come on, you men of Staffordshire ; I '11 take this 
point or die in the attempc ' ; upon which the men rushed up the hill and took it 
gallantly, and bayoneted every Arab in it ; but the brave old Colonel was shot 
down. W. H. Saunders, G Troop, igth Hussars. 



234 The British Campaign in tJie Soudan. 

It would appear that General Wolseley had not yet 
opened his eyes to the impossibility of continuing the 
campaign, for on the 13th of February he telegraphed the 
Khedive that he believes "there will be no more lighting 
along the Nile until General Brackenbury reaches Berber^ 
with the late General Earle's force." 

If he had ever reached Berber he would have found 
himself out of range of all help, surrounded on all sides, 
and with no other alternatives but to die in battle or by 
famine. It is absolutely inconceivable that Wolseley 
could have thought for a moment of letting him advance 
farther when he knew that Sir Bedvers Buller was 
preparing to retreat, and all the steamers were lost. 
That he was so slow in coming to a just estimate, of the 
hazardous position of his two detached columns speaks 
ill for his generalship. His only excuse is perhaps 
the wild dispatches from London bidding him capture 
Berber at any cost, and at the same time giving him 
cartt blanche Si^ to future operations. In the meantime, 
Bi'ackenbury, having advanced but a short distance above 
Kirbekan under continuall}^ increasing difficulties, crossed 
his entire force to the east bank of the Nile on the 25th 
of February, and had hardly done so when he received 
orders to fall back at once upon Korti, where the entire 
army was finally re-concentrated on the 9th of March. 
But Wolseley's position was still one of the greatest 
peril, according to all the rules of probability. Judging 
from the ability and the wonderful energy the Mahdi 
had displayed before, it was to be supposed that after 
the capture of Khartoum he would hurl his entire foi'ce 
against the British, and that the Bedouin tribes occupy- 
ing the deserts for live hundred miles in their rear 



Tlie Bi'UlsJi Oampujigii in the Soudan. 235 

on each side of tlie Nile would rise en masse to cut off 
their retreat, inflamed by religious enthusiasm as well as 
as by the knowledge that the rich spoils of the British 
army would be theirs in case of success.'^^' If these Bedou- 
ins had combined together, there could have been no es- 
cape for Wolseley. His only base of supplies was Cairo, 
from which he was separated by twelve hundred miles of 
desert. True, the Nile was there, but falling more and 
more every day for four months to come. Then the fear- 
ful heat was even now coming, the terrible Khamseen, 
which no EiTropeans could Avithstand if compelled to 
keep moving without shelter. ISTo supplies or reinforce- 
ments could possibly reach him in less than three months, 
if ever at all. If the Bedouins, avoiding battle, had kept 
the British at the centre of a movable circle of twenty 
or thii'ty miles in diameter, removing and destroying all 
supplies within their reach, complete destruction must 
have been their fate. 

But with barbarians every thing goes by impulse, and 
in the East it is always the improbable — almost the im- 
possible — which happens. Dissensions arose in the Mahdi's 
ranks immediately after the capture of Khartoum. Part 
of his soldiers scattered to take their booty home. The 
Baggaras, his first proselytes, dissatisfied at the small 
amount of plunder found in Khartoum, deserted him and 
joined a rival prophet, named Muley Hassan Ali, who 
arose in Kordofan, claiming to be the true Mahdi. He 
defeated Mohammed Achmet's troops and entered El 
Obeid in triumph, mounted upon a white horse and bear- 
ing a naked sword, given to him by the prophet Mo- 

* The Ababdehs and Bishareens are the sole occupants of the Eastern Desert as 
far down the Nile as Edfou (See map). 



236 TTie British Ocmipaign in the Soudan. 

hammed himself to slay the false Mahdi. The magnifi- 
cent success which should have placed Mohammed Ach- 
met on the highest pinnacle of power was, in fact, the 
beginning of his decadence. After being killed some ten 
or twelve times by the journals, he finally died of small- 
pox in July, leaving his prophet's mantle to another 
Mahdi, who was soon after assassinated by his own fol- 
lowers. 

To these peculiarly Oriental circumstances Wolseley, 
"the lucky," owed his escape from the trap into which 
he had ventured. On the 23d of March he ordered the 
evacuation of Korti, alleging with much truth the fatal 
effects of the climate. Typhoid fever, dysentery, and sun- 
strokes were increasing among the troops, even before the 
advent of the dreaded Khamseen. The army fell back 
to Dongola— thence to the second cataract, where Sir 
Kedvers Buller was left with two brigades ; the rest 
went back to Lower Egypt, while Lord Wolseley himself 
returned to England in May, to be loaded with rewards 
and honors for having made one of the most egregious 
failures on record, for it was not due to any defeats in 
battle, but solely to vacillation and delay. 

The last act in the drama is Gen. Graham's second 
campaign at Suakim. Why it should ever have been 
undertaken nearly two months after Gordon's death and 
when Wolseley's force was already in full retreat, it is difii- 
cult to explain. But what could be expected from a 
government that had never known its own purpose for a 
month ahead? It had refused aid in the Soudan when 
it was easy and opportune, and afterwards sent an army 
when it was too late ; it had proclaimed peace at Khar- 
toum, and at the same time slaughtered 6,000 Bedouins 



Tlie JBritish Ca')npaign in the Soudan. 237 

at Suakim to prove its peaceful intentions ; it had invited 
Turkisli intervention and then forbidden it even at the 
cannon's month ; it had sought Abyssinia's help and alli- 
ance and refused to pay the price she asked, though not 
one tenth of what was afterwards spent in failure ; and 
now, when really the war had no longer a raison frStre, 
a fresh campaign was inaugurated for no other purpose 
than vengeance. To restore England's prestige and 
avenge Gordon's death, Khartoum must be captured and 
" the Mahdi must be smashed ! " And to do this, the 
Suakim-Berber route was once more selected, Avithout any 
consideration of last year's experience. 

My opinion might be considered by some as tinged 
with American prejudice, but the British Journals abound 
with much more severe denunciations. Here is the Judg- 
ment of Sir A. H. Layard, formerly Minister to Constan- 
tinople, and of world-wide celebrity, from his letter to the 
Times, dated Feb. 14th. 

" It is scarcely necessary for me to refer to what I consider the unnecessary, and 
consequently wicked, bombardment of Alexandria, and the short but bloody cam- 
paign on the Nile ; the shocking and useless slaughter of the Arabs near Suakim, 
with whom we had no cause of quarrel ; and the hopeless mission of the heroic 
Gordon, and his desertion and death. These events, and the most culpable vacil- 
lation and delays on the part of the government, have led to the expedition to- 
Khartoum in which we are now engaged, which has already cost us the lives of 
many brave men, and will cost us the lives of many more, whom England, in these 
critical times, can ill spare. 

" Why are we going to Khartoum? No one, it seems, can answer the question. 
And yet the soil of the Soudan is reeking with the blood of our soldiers and with 
that of the wretched Arabs, whom we are pleased to call ' rebels.' Why ' rebels ' ? 
They are not our subjects, and have done us no wrong. Gordon, betrayed by his 
own government, has fallen in a war brought on by ourselves while holding a 
fortified place to which we had no right. Hitherto England has not been wont to 
avenge the death of her heroes by the wholesale massacre of brave men. 

' ' I have only glanced at a few of the blunders — and worse than blunders — com- 
mitted by the government. But it is useless to recur to the past. What is to be 
done in the future ? We must now of necessity, and at any sacrifice, take Khar- 



238 Tlie Britisli Cmnpaign in tlie Soudan. 

toum, not to avenge the death of Gordon, but to restore our prestige and credit, 
which the incapacity of the Ministry has so seriously compromised. To retreat would 
be to make Eastern races believe that we had been defeated and driven back by 
the undisciplined hordes of the Mahdi — a belief that might be productive to us of 
the most serious consequences. We cannot retain Khartoum permanently ; we 
cannot allow any European Power to possess it. Nor can we abandon it to the 
wild tribes of the Soudan. To do so would be to expose those who have befriended 
us to massacre, to endanger Egypt proper, to re-open the .slave trade on a vast 
scale, and to destroy our coiiinlerce in those regions. It appears to me, therefore, 
that we have only one course to pursue — to allow the Sultan, who is the legitimate 
owner of ihe Soudan, to occupy it. We cannot consistently with our reputation 
and dignity ask his aid to take Khartoum ; but when we have established ourselves 
there, and made the so-called ' rebels ' feel our power, surely there would be no 
loss of either if we handed over the country to those who have. a right to it. It 
would, indeed, be well worth our while to assist the Sultan to occupy it by helping 
him with our transports and by forwarding his troops inland. It would, in the 
end, be a considerable saving of blood and money were we to do so. 

"But, it will be objected, Turkish rule is bad and corrupt. At any rate, it 
would be better than the anaixhy which would prevail in the Soudan after we had 
abandoned it ; for there are no native elements out of which a strong and stable 
government could be formed. We could take measures to restrain any abuse of 
power on the part of the Turkish authorities — by keeping, for instance, at their 
side a capable and energetic man in some such capacity as our Commissioner. In 
the hands of the Mahdi, or of any one likely to succeed him, Khartoum would 
again become a centre of the slave-trade. With Turkey we could combine for its 
complete suppression." 

Sir Heuiy Layard's plan, as marked out in this letter, 
miglit be liable to objection ; but it had at least the merit 
of a definite object in view. 

Between the 10th and 15th of March, Gen. Graham's 
force of about 5,000 of the elite of the British army, com- 
prising, among other regiments, the Coldstream and 
Grenadier Guards, the Royal Artillery, the 5th and 17th 
(Irish) Lancers, landed at Suakim and repeated the per- 
formance of the preceding year with much greater loss 
and less success. The movements were so similar that it 
becomes tedious to describe them in detail. The first 
step was always to establish zeiibas and water-depots be- 
fore moving a few miles from feuakim ; then having a 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 239 

brush witli the enemy and — going back. On the 20th of 
March an engagement took place at Hasheen which 
nearly resulted in disaster, as is shown by the following 
account : 

" The Arabs displayed desperate bravery. The marines drove them from the 
hills and forced them to retire to the plains. Then the Indian troops charged upon 
the Arab position, but were outflanked, and an unsuspected body of Arabs suc- 
ceeded in getting behind their line. The Indians (Bengal cavalry) found them- 
selves between two fires and they fled. During this retreat they were closely 
pressed by the Arabs, who hamstrung the horses and speared the riders. The 
Bengalese fell back in confusion upon the English infantry and guards, who had 
been foimed in a hollow square, and the square leisurely retired while the Arabs 
were yelling that they had regained their lost position. At this juncture the artillery 
came to the rescue, and a brisk fire of small-shot from the machine-guns and shells 
from the Kriipp field-inortars drove the Arabs from their position. The marines 
maintained a steady firing throughout the engagement. 

" The honors of the day are probably due to the Irish Lancers, who changed the 
tide of battle by a desperate charge and retrieved the fortunes of Gen. Graham's 
command when they seemed almost hopeless. The British troops have returned 
to iheir former camp, near Suakim." 

On the 2 2d another and more serious conflict occurred 
upon the same ground, which is thus described : 

"Suakim, March 22d. — While detachments of English and Indian infantiy 
were making a zeriba seven miles southwest of Suakim to-day they were suddenly 
surprised by a rush of Arabs who had been massed and concealed in the defiles 
west of Hasheen. 

" The English formed a square as quickly as possible, but the camels, mules, 
and horses were driven back in confusion on the troops, causing a stampede, and 
amid clouds of dust the Arabs penetrated the south and north sides of >,the square. 
Meanwhile the marines and Berkshire Regiment, who were on the east and west 
sides of the square, maintained a continuous fire, holding the enemy at bay, while 
a charge of the cavalry and the fire from the guns at the Masheen zeriba checked 
the onslaught of the Arabs, which at first threatened a serious disaster to the 
British." 

" March 23d. — Nearly all the casualties were due to spear thrusts received in 
hand-to-hand engagements. The Arabs got between the transport train and zeriba, 
speared the men of the transport corps, and killed the animals. They fought 
savagely, refusing to give or take quarter. 

" Gen. McNeil, who was commanding the zeriba, reports vaguely that there 
were several thousand rebels in the fight, and that over one thousand were killed or 
wounded. Gen. McNeil is blamed for not taking precautions against a surprise. 



240 The Britisli Campaign in the Soudan. 

" The damage done to transport materials yesterday is immense. The guards 
and artillery were sent to reinforce the troops who were attacked. The whole 
British force remained in the field during the night. 

" The camels and mules were hamstrung by the Arabs. Scores of camp- 
followers were cut up. Arabs scattered about in the whole vicinity intercepting 
native fugitives. The appearance and yells of the Arabs were so sudden that the 
whole assemblage of transport animals, mixed with natives, became panic-stricken 
and surged on the zeriba, making resistance hopeless. The scene was indescrib- 
able. Arabs glided and crept in all directions among the animals. The Haden- 
dowas swarmed from the bush like magic and attacked the zeriba fiercely on all 
sides. The Soudanese coolies were mistaken for enemies, and many were killed 
by frieiids. 

" The enemy began an attack at 3 o'clock this morning. They were repulsed, 
and the ground was cleared by 4." 

" London, March 23d. — Gen. Graham telegraphs from the advanced zeriba 
that the British position there is strong and secure against any number of the 
enemy. He regrets the serious British losses in yesterday's fight, but exonerates 
Gen. McNeil from blame, believing he did the best that could be done under the 
circumstances. Gen. Graham praises the gallantry of all the troops. He says the 
cavalry would have given the alarm had not the rugged nature of the ground pre- 
vented their seeing more than a short distance. Though the rebels met with a 
temporary success, they learned a severe lesson. The corpses of over 1,000 Arabs 
have been counted on the field of yesterday's battle, including the l)odies of many 
noted chiefs." 

" London, March 24th. — The Standard's Suakim dispatch says the British 
killed in the engagement of Sunday were seven officers and sixty-three men. 
Many bodies of boys and women were found on the battle-field." 

In tliis fight the total loss on the British side, including 
friendly Arabs, was greater tlian ever before, being 580 
killed and wounded and 1,000 camels. 

This engagement was followed by the inevitable return 
to Sualvim. Thouo^h the British advanced zeriba was 
secure, as General Graham said, against any number of 
the enemy, it was a physical impossibility to hold it, for 
the labor of keeping a watei'-train constantly going over 
these seven miles, protected by troops every step of the 
way as it must be, would have speedily worn out the 
whole army. How much security or tranquillity the 
British enjoyed in their lines aiV)und Suakim is vividly 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 241 

described in tlie following Soudan correspondence of the 
London Telegraph. 

" How the Hadendowas do it nobody but they themselves can tell, but night 
after night they come into the middle of our camp, stab and hack a few soldiers, 
and go out again scathless. Sometimes they creep in five abreast past our sentinels ; 
sometimes they come right up to our tents, half a mile within the line of redoubts 
and pickets, and bring camels and horses with them. But, whatever the audacity 
of their entrance, the impunity of their departure is the same. Our guards turn 
out, bugles sound the alarm, signals flash, rifles are let off, a gun-boat fires over- 
head into black space, but next morning there are only our own mutilated and 
dead in evidence of the assassins' presence. The Hadendowas have left none be- 
hind them, or had none to leave. It is horriVjle in the highest degree, this monot- 
ony of midnight murder, and depressing beyond language to find our head-quarters' 
staff apparently so unteachable by experience. 

" Crawling along on all fours, they traverse the space between them and their 
victims with all the patient caution of wild beasts stalking prey. They reach the 
doomed tent. For the sake of the sea breeze the doorway is open, and the next 
instant the murderer is standing by the sleeping soldier's side. He feels a hand 
passing over his body and starts. A cry is rising to his lips. It is strangled in his 
throat by a groan of pain, and before the gallant fellow can even warn his com- 
rades the fierce spear is driven home through his body, the heavy two-handed 
sword has fallen across him. But the tent is alarmed. There is no time to lose ! 
Slashing this way and that, the murderers stab and hack with the fury of fiends, 
and then as the camp starts to its feet in clamor they are off. Not a sound beti'ays 
their passing. There is no trace of blood to tell of retribution. They are gone — 
back into the villainous gullies, back into the scattered brush, and next we can 
imagine them sitting to refresh themselves outside our line of redoubts — to listen 
gleefully to the storm they have raised — the bugles telling the old tale of niurder 
completed and the murderers gone, the aimless volley of rifles, the din of voices, 
the impotent utterances of our indignant guns roaring for an impossible vengeance. 
They hear the tempest of the camp's alarm swell up and dwindle away, and then 
quietly get up and pass on to where their friends are waiting to congratulate and to 
rejoice — to rub their spear-heads against the red tips of the assassin's weapons, to 
smear their swords with the blood still wet on their blades. And in our camp ? 
The hospital stretchers there are carrying away the mangled, mutilated bodies of 
ovir men, their comrades standing to their arms, savage with useless rage, as they 
look at the lantern-lit group of surgeons and wounded. It is a horrible episode, 
yet of nightly occurrence. 

" ' Murder ! Murder ! ' I heard the word ring out last night from the ordnance 
camp and then came a cry — the bitter cry of a man suddenly overtaken by the 
agony of death. A shot and then another and another. Then a confusion of 
muffled sounds. Then silence. I was only 400 yards away. The night had been 
so still that the water lapping on the quay was plainly audible where I lay. 
Presently came this brief uproar of alarm, subsiding as suddenly as it had arisen. 



242 Tlie Bvitisli Carnpaign in the Soudan. 

Signals were flashing overhead. A party of Hadendovvas had either crept straight 
across the camp; or passing along the rear, had traversed its complete length, cross- 
ing twice on their way the electric light thrown by the Dolphin, had reached, with- 
out being observed, the farthest batch of tents from their starting-point, the nearest 
to the town. Behind them, only a hundred yards off, was Quarantine island, with 
its camp ; nearer still lay our shipping, with the gun-boats close in shore, com- 
manding one line of their retreat, the whole of the British troops intercepting the 
other. Behind them was the sea ; on their left the town, yet, such is the confidence 
inspired by nightly success and impunity, that the assassins did not hesitate to 
creep even into such a des]3erate position as this. And their work was desperate 
and terribly complete. Of the whcle of the occupants of the tents — 24 in all — 
only two escaped their spears and swords, while the murderers retreated apparently 
unharmed. As they went back rifles were wildly emptied after them, and the 
Carysfort fired volleys into the dark. But there was no trace of blood. Inside the 
tents the sight was dreadful — blood everywhere, and men lying about in all direc- 
tions wounded and groaning." 

On tlie 28t]i of March, General Graham having con- 
structed more zeribas and established additional water- 
depots, moved again to the position occupied by General 
McNeil on the 2 2d. In two weeks he had approached 
only two miles nearer to Tama'i, the old battle-ground of 
last year. The heat was growing fearful, sunstrokes and 
fever cases multiplying greatly. Finally, on the 2d of 
April, he advanced to Tamai, and found it evacuated. 
After resting and watering his troops, he burned Osman- 
Digma's camp, as he had done last year, and returned to 
Suakim on the 4th. The wily Bedouin was learning les- 
sons in war ; he had ordered his followers to avoid a reg- 
ular battle, and to draw the British after them into the 
hills. At this time Graham was instructed to open nego- 
tiations with Osman-Digma, which the latter refused to 
entertain. 

It must be stated here that, in connection with Gra- 
ham's expedition, a second attempt was made to construct 
a railroad. The London Engineering contained the fol- 
lowing information : 



The JBritish Campaign in the Soudan. 24(^ 

" The military authorities have at length made up their minds, and a standard 
gauge railway is to be laid from the Red Sea to the Nile. The construction of the 
line does not appear to offer any obstacles which railway engineers are not in the 
habit of contending with. There are said to be eleven groups of wells in the 
total distance, but many of these would be utterly inefficient for engineering work. 

" The military authorities have, however, determined to be independent of such 
chances, and have made a contract, according to which a four-inch pipe is to be 
laid along the whole route. 

" H. G. H. Tarr, of Yonkers, N. Y., has been offered the contract of laying the 
three hundred miles of pipe across the desert to supply water to the English soldiers 
in the Soudan. He has not decided whether he will accept the contract. 

" The pumps are to be supplied by the H. R. "VYorthington Hydraulic Works, of 
New York, who have achieved such a signal success in the pumping of petroleum 
thiough long distances in America. There are to be six double pumps, with steam 
cylinders eighteen inch in diameter by eighteen-inch stroke. 

" The Admiralty has been directed to find the necessary vessels for transporting 
the plant to the spot, and shipments were to have been made, it was said, this 
week, both from Hull and London. Each vessel will take a complete equipment 
for the construction and working of five miles of the line, so that should any mis- 
hap occur to one vessel, the whole work will not be detained for want of some vital 
feature. The list made out includes a locomotive and ballast trucks and trollies, 
one crane, two crabs, pumps, steam boilers, permanent way complete, electric light 
plant, and all other necessary appliances, including fifteen thousand sleepers, etc.,. 
etc. 

" As for the time that will be taken in the construction of the line, it is very dif- 
ficult to make a forecast with any pretence to accuracy at present. The great im- 
portant and uncertain factor at present is the question of native labor. If that can 
be obtained easily on the spot, a great part of the difficulty will be overcome. In 
any case, the first instalment of plant cannot be landed at Suakim much under a 
month, and it will doubtless be well into May before the whole of the appliances 
are on the ground. It is evident, therefore, that this proposed line can have little 
influence on the present military situation on the Nile." — Engineering, Feb. 20, 
1885. 

The Illustrated London Neios added : 

' ' It has now been decided also to lay down the long-talked-of railway to Berber. 
The route chosen will be about two hundred and seventy miles in length, and will 
run over the best water district, there being, however, a perfectly arid stretch of 
fifty miles. The work will be carried on by Messrs. Lucas & Aird, who have in- 
formed the Government that the first thirty-five miles of railway gear has already 
been arranged for, and will be ready for shipment this week. If all goes well, the 
railway will be constructed in four or five months. " 

The London Times of Feb. 20t]i made the following 
prophecies. [The italics are my own.] 



24:4c The British Campaign in the Soudam,. 

" Arrangements have already been made by Messrs. Lucas & Aird for the co- 
operation of natives, and workmen from other parts will also co-operate with the 
men now sent out immediately on their arrival. Thus, the public may rely on the 
fact that there will be no hindrance or delay in pushing the road to the front. 

' ' The reports point to a fight in the neighborhood of Tamai' or Tamanieb, and 
this wf.ll be followed up by a rapid advance to Sinkat, where it may possibly be de- 
sirable to garrison for a time. Sinkat is comparatively cool, and would form a 
healthy summer station, the occupation of which would probably paralyze _ the 
action of the tribes, and enable the railway pioneer force to advance along the 
northern route unopposed. It has generally been believed that the movement of a 
small force to Berber would have been possible after General Graham's victories 
last year, and this is still more likely to be the case now, when, after defeat, the 
Arabs will be at once follotved up to their stronghold. The probability seems to be, 
therefore, that after one battle the military situation in this portion of the theatre 
of war will clear itself ; while there can be little doubt that the final suppression of 
Osman Digma will produce a moral effect at Khartoum." 

Tlie '■^Thunderer " was certainly most unfortunate in its 
predictions wlien assuring tlie public of the fact that there 
would be '' no liinclrance or delay in pushing the road to 
the front." It failed to take into account the rather serious 
objections the Bedouins made to its construction. Its 
surmise that a fight at Tamai or Tamanieb would be " fol- 
lowed by a rapid advance to Sinkat " was equally unlucky, 
and all its prophecies were completely falsified by events. 

But, in my opinion, the most absurd idea of all, con- 
sidering the localities and circumstances, was that of con- 
structing a line of pipe to convey water from Suakim to 
Berber. The credit (?) of originating it was claimed by 
one of the New York dailies. Now, although an Ameri- 
can editor is expected to know everything — and a good 
deal more, — he may be excused for being unfamiliar with 
the peculiar difficulties of the Soudan deserts. Some 
months before, another New York dail}'' had given its 
readers a highly imaginative and fictitious description of 
the shady groves, smiling oases, e;plivened by the warbling 
of birds, and the purling streams to be found on the Sua- 



The British Cmnpaign in the Soudan. 245 

kim-Berber route ! But tliat the British military author- 
ities, who ought to have hnovju, and had no possible excuse 
for not knowing, the nature of the country and the obsta- 
cles in the way, should have at once Jumped at the idea 
and proceeded to make contracts for carrying it out, 
is really inconceivable. I hope Messrs. Worthington <fe 
Tarr were given the contracts, and made a good thing by 
them. They were not responsible for the imbecility of 
the scheme. It seems to have been imagined that there 
was nothing to do but to lay the pipe down and cover it 
with sand, for the paper said : 

" It has been settled that the pipe is to be laid in zig-zag lines to allow for ex- 
pansion and contraction under the sand. The laying of the pipe, if a sufficient 
force of men is put to work, ought to proceed at the rate of about twenty miles a 
day. [Twice as fast as an army could march !] An American gentleman convers- 
ant with all the details of the oil pipe-line system, now in London, is in consulta- 
tion with the British Government, and there seems to be a disposition to expedite 
the work. 

" It will, of course, be necessary to have a guard at every pumping-station on 
tlie route. These stations will also be stopping-places for the railroad trains." 

There wei'e to be engines every twenty-five or thirty 
miles, and water was to be supplied at the rate of one 
hundred and fifty gallons a minute, or over two hundred 
thousand gallons per day, which would have to be ob- 
tained chiefly from the condensers at Suakim ! And 
what would the Bedouins be doing all the while ? 

All this shows the absurdity of trying from the 
" Horse Guards " in London to direct operations in a 
country thousands of miles away, and about which the 
Commander-in-chief and his advisers evidently knew 
nothing. It also illustrates the folly of supposing that 
the same means mil accomplish the same results in 
regions differing so entirely and absolutely in every re- 



246 Tlie British' Campaign in the Soudan. 

spect as Pennsylvania and tlie Soudan. It was assumed 
tliat because a pipe-line liad been highly successful in 
conveying oil hundreds of miles in America, it would be 
equally available for conveying water in the desert. But 
in America supplies of all kinds, transportation, water^ 
fuel, timber, w^orkshops, machinery, willing and intelli- 
gent labor, are to be had in abundance far exceeding the 
demand ; and in addition, perfect peace and the full pro- 
tection, not only of the law but of the entire community, 
ensuring the swift punishment of any trespasser daring 
to tamper with the line. In the Soudan, on the con- 
trary, no supplies, no water, no timber, not even a prac- 
ticable road. Every stick of timber, every railroad tie,, 
every pound of coal, to be brought from abroad. Not 
only no native labor to be had, but every Bedouin bend- 
ing all his energies to prevent the construction of the 
line, and to cut it in a hundred places every night if it 
were ever built ! 

Now, let it not be supposed that I claim credit for ex- 
traordinary acumen or prophetic foresight for asserting 
before the railway was shipped and Graham sailed that 
the former would never be built and that the British 
would never advance twenty miles from Suakim. My 
predictions were based upon my hioiuledge of the coun- 
try, and I would have confessed myself an idiot if I could 
not have formed a correct judgment. But the point I 
make here against the British military authorities is, that 
this same knowledge had been perfectly accessible to 
them for six years at least, and that there was no 'excuse 
for their not mastering it, or for not drawing correct con- 
clusions from it. In my letter V> the New York World, 
published March 1, 1885, I used the following language : 



The British Cam,paign in the Soudan. 247 

" My knowledge and experience of engineering must be behind the times, for I 
confess I cannot conceive of any patent-lightning process by which a railroad can 
be built in a few weeks across a lofty chain of mountains, eighty miles broad, and 
then one hundred and sixty miles farther, when not even a line has ever been sur- 
veyed, and when ihe only trail goes up and down grades so steep that camel-riding 
is often un.'-afe. Think of the grading, blasting, tunnelSng, etc., that must be done 
before the track can be laid — in a couniry where even wooden ties must be brought 
from abroad ; for all the stunted mimosas between Suakim and Berber could not 
yield ties enough for ten miles. And wlio is to build this railroad under this tropi- 
cal African sun ? Nothing hns been said about bringing laborers to do the' work. 
I fancy the job is not attractive, and even for high pay it will not be easy to obtain 
them. Are the soldiers to build the raiKvay ? They would have cjuite enough to 
do to protect the laborers from the attacks of the Bedouins, unless we suppose the 
latter to fold up their hands and look on meekly while the road was building. And 
if the road were built, how many regiments would have to be echeloned along the 
line to keep it from being cut at a hundred points ? The idea seems too absurd for 
serious contemplation, and yet some British officers who could see from Suakim the 
mnjestic chain lifting its lofiy crests less than fifteen miles away, asserted six weeks 
ago tliat a narrow-gaxige road could be laid as fast as the troops can march ! But 
the project was soon abandoned, as it will be again beyond a doubt. 

"General Graham may once more land his troops at Suakim, but mark my 
words, the Coldstream and Grenadier Guards who have just left London will never 
march to Berber." 

Referring to tlie pipe-line scheme, wliicli had just 
been published, I^adclecl : 

" The scheme is so idiotic that it must be a canard. How could it be possible 
to procure distilled water enough for an army and i;s animals in^ the first place? 
But if enough could be produced, how could the pipes be laid across the mounlains 
and plains for two hundred and fifty miles ? [with the enemy all aioundj. If laid 
how could they be protected from being cut ? . . . Moses himself in the Sinai 
desert never attempted such a miracle ! " 

How the plan worked is shown by the following press 
dispatch : 

" April 25, 1S85. — The building of the Berber Railway hns been suspended out- 
side of Suakim, owing to the inability of the army to afford protection to the line- 
beyond the camp. It has been decided that the forces necessary for such protec-^ 
tion cannot be spared." 

Not only so, but nightly attacks were made upon the 
British outposts, in which the Bedouins often succeeded 



248 The JBritish Cmwpakjn in the Soudan. 

in burning quantities of tlie wooden sleepers and other 
material brought from England at great expense. Only 
a few miles were laid, to be quickly torn up by the 
enemy. Three months later the steamers, which had 
never even unloatted the material, took it back to Eng- 
land, and that was the last heard of the railway and the 
pipe-line. General Graham was a distinguished engineer 
officer, that being his special arm of the service ; he had a 
splendid record,* and he and Herbert Stewart did the 
most and the best fighting in the Soudan. He understood 
perfectly that a I'ailway to Berber can never be built 
while hostile Bedouins hold the deserts, and in all the 
accounts of the war, I have not seen a single word to 
show that he ever advocated the undertakino;. 

The burning of Osman-Digma's camp was the last 
episode of the campaign. On the 7th of May, Lord 
Wolseley came from Cairo to Suakim by sea to review 
Graham's army and compliment it on its achievements. 
After this the two generals and all the troops re-embarked, 
leaving a garrison of one thousand two hundred marines 
at Suakim, who from that time forth were closely be- 
sieged in their lines, protected by gun-boats. It was 
officially reported the following August, that of that 
number only one hundred were fit for duty in conse- 
quence of the terrible effects of the climate. 



* " General Graham entered the British army as an ensign in the Royal En- 
gineers, in 1850. He served through the Crimean war with that body, receiving 
promotion for his gallantry and gaining the highly-prized Victoria Cross for heading 
a party in an assault by ladders at the Redan. Twice during the Crimean war he 
was wounded. In the Chinese war General Graham also distinguished himself, 
taking part in the assault of Tangku and the Taku forts, and also in the capture of 
Pekin. His promotion was gained step by step, until, in 1881, his present rank 
was reached. In the campaign against Arabi, in 18S2, General Graham com- 
manded the Second brigade, and won new honors." 



1 he British Oampaigii in the Soudan. 249 

The condition in wliicli the country and the people were 
left by the British evacuation is well described by the 
war correspondent of the London Graphic, in a letter 
dated May 30, 1885, as follows : . 

" The withdrawal of British troops from the Soudan goes on rapidly, alike on the 
the Nile and at Suakim. Dreading the arrival of the Mahdists on the departure of 
the British from Dongola, the majority of the population are fleeing north, and the 
authorities are obliged to provide shelter and food for the refugees at Wady Haifa, 
while trying to induce some neighboring powerful sheikh to take the government of 
the district. The Mahdi, however, has retired up the White Nile to Jebel Ellini, 
and announces that he will not advance on the Dongola district till after next 
Ramadan. Indeed, he is thought to have little chance of doing so, as his influence 
is weakened by the growing power of his rival the anti-Mahdi, Sidi IMuley Achmed. 
One by one the positions beyond Suakim, which have been so carefully fortified by 
the British, are being abandoned. Otao and Handoub, on the road to Berber, 
have been evacuated ; and though the railway is still protected by ihe frequent 
running of an armored train, the Arabs tear up the rails, and indulge in small 
skirmishes wheneyer possible. It is evident already that the tribes are flocking 
back to Osman Digma, even many of the friendlies, taking with them the British 
weapons they have received. Suakim itself is in a state of perpetual confusion, 
with troops continually embarking, the harbor filled with transports hearing the 
now useless railway stock, and sickness and depression prevailing amongst the 
soldiers. The heat seriously affects Indian as well as British regiments, and over 
I, TOO have beer:i invalided within the last two months. Airy huts, with thatched 
roofs, are being constructed for the men. Lord Wolseley has gone back to Cairo, 
handing over the command of the Nile force to General Dormer, and preparations 
are being madfe both at Cairo and Alexandria for the temporary accommodation of 
the British troops. The Guards have at last been disembarked at Alexandria, and 
this proceeding raises anew fresh comments as to the change of plans, none of 
which are over-complimentary to England and her vacillation. Egypt looks 
anxiously for the reply to the British note, inviting Turkey to occupy Suakim and 
other Red Sea poits. If Turkey refuses, the note slates that England must ar- 
range for some civilized Power to occupy the positions, while, as soon as order and 
a stable government are secured, the English troops will be withdrawn irora Egypt." 

Meanwhile the probabilities of war with Rnssia about 
the Afghanistan question diverted public attention, and 
the Soudan almost passed out of mind. The Soudanese, 
however, have persistently continued their advance. 
Dongola fell into their hands, and in December they 
became so threatening^ that Sir Redvers Buller, then 



/n^ 



250 The British Ccmipaign in the Soudan. 

commanding at the second cataract, found it necessary to 
drive them back. He advanced from Wadv Haifa, and 
on the 30th of December, 1885, he met the enemy at 
Ghiunis. The usual result occurred. There was a skir- 
mish, a few volleys fired, and the Bedouins, after leaving 
two hundred or three hundred killed and wounded on the 
field, retreated, to advance again as soon as the British 
retired to their former positions. Lord Rosebery, Foreign 
Secretary, subsequently instructed Sir Henry Drummond 
Wolff, the British Commissioner in Egypt, to withdraw 
the British troops from Wady Haifa. So that the whole 
of Nubia, as well as the entire Soudan, is abandoned to 
the horrors of anarchy and brigandage. It was found 
impossible, however, to withdraw the British from the 
first cataract without exposing Egypt herself to the danger 
of invasion. A few regiments are still at Assouan (1886), 
and their condition may be inferred from these extracts 
from letters published in the London Journals.'"' 

" While men's minds are wholly occupied with the Irish question at home, our 
troubles abroad are certainly not decreasing. In Egypt and Uurmah the flower of 
the Bi-itish army are being sacrificed. 

' ' Our best troops are silently perishing by disease on the banks of the Nile. 
Our bravest officers,, with the courage of their race, are sacrificing their lives, one 
after the other, in the vain attempt to remedy one continued series of mistakes, 
which commenced with our occupation of the country, and seem unending, In 
each instance of wanton and uncalled for interference with foreign nations we have 
failed ignominiously. We went to Egypt avowedly to put an end to Arabi's rebel- 
lion, and to restore peace to the country. We have succeeded in maintaining just 
as much order as the presence of the British troops inspires ; we have, indirectly, 
lost Egypt the Soudan ; we have covered the desert with the bones of brave Eng- 
lishmen and Arabs in our vain attempts to force back into subjection a province 
we had neither the wisdom to keep for Egypt nor the energy to reconquer ; we 
sacrificed Gordon at Khartoum to the indecision and vacillation of a government 
which sent him there in a moment of panic, and kept him there a lingering martyr 

* The printing of this paper having been delayed by various causes, I have added 
for the sake of completeness a few references to later events. 



The British Campaign in the Soudan. 251 

to its shamefiil violation of its promises of support. And now a second time we 
are pliying the same miserable part in Burmah. 

" How much longer are our troops to remain in Egypt? The reports from 
Assouan are most pitiable. The Dorset, Berks, and Durham regiments have each 
lost about four hundred men, half their strength, from enteric fever or from suii- 
•stroke. Five or six hours after the moment of attack suffices to carry them off. 
In the last month there were fifty-two deaths, and one man reports that the day 
before he left Assouan for Cairo eight men were lying dead in llie mortuary, and 
five others were being buried. With the thermometer 126° in the shade, it is no 
wonder that our men die like fleas. Thus, four years after the first fatal step, 
English soldiers are still being sacrificed by hundreds in that terrible Nile valley." 

The troops at Suakim are suffering quite as much. 
A correspondent of the London Standard writes : 

" I cannot help wishing that the people at home Icnew the exact state of affairs 
out here. If they could only hear the howls of rage and vows of vengeance when 
•some one reads aloud a statement in the papers from home that ' the climate of 
Suakim is pleasant," they might think there were two opinions upon the subject. 
If being held in a vice of fearful heat is pleasant, Suakim is decidedly so. If 
men dying of heat apoplexy is a sign of a healthy climaie, Suakim may be called 
salubrious. To live in a place where the temperature never goes below 96°, and 
frequently rises to 1x2° and 120°, is to drag out such an existence as none who 
have not expeiienced it can possibly imagine. To make matters worse, the epi- 
demic of enteric fever continues unabated, and a melancholy procession to the 
cemetery may be seen alwa\s once, sometimes twice, a day. At the present rate 
•of mortality more than half of ihe European troops here will be in their last rest- 
ing-place within a year, and the other half will have been invalided home two or 
three times over. What with the smells from want of drainage, the fearful, tor- 
turing heat, and ike condensed water, which is often putrid, Suakim is about the 
last place to keep Englishmen in. The Sliropshire regiment, which came out over 
nine hundred strong, is now about seven hundred, and will be less when the next 
draft of sick men leave. They lost only two killed in a niglit alarm, and have had 
a reinforcement from Suez of fifty. Can any thing speak more plainly than this ? 
Last year the Marine Battery, five hundred strong, invalided fifteen hundred men 
away, which means that it took two thousand men to keep up the regiment to the 
small strength of five hundred." 

And what is there to show for all this fearful waste of 
treasure, and of what was still more precious — gallant 
and noble lives? National humiliation resulting from 
the consciousness of inexcusable failure ; loss of national 
prestige throughout the world ; bitter sorrow for the fate 



252 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

of the hero to whom rescue came too late ; Egypt despoiled 
of half her territory and crushed under the burden of addi- 
tional debt ; vast provinces where order reigned before, 
which were then rapidly opening to humanizing influ- 
ences, and were connected with the rest of the Avorld by 
increasing commerce and by telegraph, now so completely 
beyond the pale of civilization that nothing more is. 
known of what is going on there than of the savages 
living around the equatorial lakes. These are some of 
the fruits produced from the evil seed planted on the 
ill-omened day when England was reluctantly induced 
to interfere in Egyptian affairs "in order that Shylock 
might have his pound of flesh." Speaking of that inter- 
ference at Cooj)er Institute, in November, 1882, after 
the arbitrary and impolitic deposition of Ismail-Pasha,, 
and the bombardment of Alexandria I said : " England, 
has sown iniquity, and she will reap disaster." How 
she must regret to-day that first fatal move which led 
step by step, to the final catastrophe ! Sir Samuel Baker,, 
who is so thoroughly familiar with the country and the 
people, protesting against the abandonment of Khartoum, 
even before Gordon was sent there to effect its evacu- 
ation, uttered these prophetic words in the Nineteenth 
Century for January, 1884 : 

" Khartoum is a name that is known among the wildest savages of equatorial 
Africa who never heard of Paris or of London ; to them it is the centre of all that 
is great, and it is the capital of ever}' thing. The abandonment of Khartoum would, 
in their estimation, be the disruption of a central power, which would imply impo- 
tence. The slave hunters have been suppressed by the authority from Khartoum, 
and the force required for that suppression has emanated from that centre of strength 
and government. If, therefore, Khartoum should be abandoned, the protection 
that was the support of loyal tribes of the interior would have been withdrawn, the- 
supporting power would have been overthrown, and the slave hunters would again 
be in the ascendant. The result would be immediate : those tribes which have beens 



The BriUsh Carrvpaign in the Sotidmi. 253 

faithful to the government would become the first victims to those who had been 
against the government. A general anarchy would ensue, and the loyal would be 
sacrificed to the slave gangs which had been kept in subjection by the imperial 
forces. The slave-trade would be renewed with tenfold vigor, as no power would 
remain to curb the atrocities of the traders. This deplorable situation would ren- 
der impossible all future attempts at government, as the natives would have lost all 
confidence of support ; they would have seen that the loyal had been sacrificed by 
the abandonment of the government upon which they had depended for protection, 
while those who had openly defied the laws had triumphed by rebellion. All the 
good results of the last five and twenty years of exploration and energetic action 
against the slave-trade would have been entirely dissipated, and the end of the long 
struggle would have yielded victory to the wrong-doers. The work of sixty-four 
years, since the conquest of the Soudan by Mehemet-Ali-Pasha, would have been 
utterly destroyed, and the Soudan would relapse into the frightful barbarism de- 
scribed by Bruce a hundred years ago. It is ridiculous to suppose that any Soudan 
races are capable of self-government. If we refuse this to Ireland, how can we ex- 
pect a better result from ignorant barbarians, who would extinguish all progress by 
a chronic inter-tribal strife? As local autonomy would be impossible should Khar- 
toum be evacuated by the Egyptian -forces, the Soudan, deprived of its capital^ 
would resolve into a political chaos, until some superior force should take advantage 
of the general disruption, and restore order by military conquest." 

Dark as this picture is, tlie reality is probably even 
worse, for the rumor comes that Khartoum has been 
razed to the ground, probably in consequence of the strug- 
gles for its possession by rival Mahdis and slave-hunting 
chiefs. 

Of the British invasion of the Soudan, no traces will be 
left, except the bleaching bones of thousands of Bedouins 
on the banks of the Nile and the shores of the .E,ed Sea, 
together with revived and redoubled hatred of that form 
of Christian civilization which could bring no better boon 
to those distant regions than the slaughter and destruc- 
tion of a people that had never done England any wi'ong. 
In this connection a reflection almost forces itself upon 
every thinking man. If England had devoted to the edu- 
cation, the material and moral improvement of Ireland 
one tenth of the millions she has spent in the last thirty 



254 The British Campaign in the Soudan. 

years in unnecessary, if not unjust, wars against weak and 
uncivilized nations, liow much stronger she would be now, 
and how much better she would deserve the title, which 
she arrogantly claims, of being the leader of Christian 
civilization ! 

I will add only a few words of comment. I have al- 
ready said enough of the political and military vacillation, 
as well as the inexcusable and, it might be thought, wil- 
ful ignorance of the theatre of war, which precluded the 
possibility of success. As to strategic ability, none was 
displayed. Lord Wolseley's separation within reach of 
the enemy of his small force into three detachments, be- 
yond supporting distance, showed a lack of generalship 
and common-sense, the consequences of which he escaped, 
not by any skill on his part, but through fortuitous cir- 
cumstances, which he had no reason to count upon, and 
over which he had no control. Bad generalship may by 
chance escape the due punishment of its blunders, but it 
is none the less bad for all that. 

As to the tactics employed, they were, perhaps, the 
best under the circumstances and before such an enemy, 
but military men cannot but wonder why an uncivilized 
and undisciplined foe, armed almost exclusively with 
swords and spears, should prove so formidable that an 
army of select British regiments, supplied with the best 
breech-loaders and abundantly strengthened with artillery 
and machine-guns, dared not meet them on the plain with- 
out constructing stockades and forming squares. Stranger, 
still, in three different engagements a square was broken, 
one being driven back eight hundred yards, and all its 
guns captured by naked savages charging on foot, — a 
deed which Napoleon's cuirassiers failed to achieve at 



The British Campaign in the iSoudan. 255 

Waterloo in tlie days of slow-firing flint-muskets ! A 
numerical superiority of four or five to one is hardly suf- 
ficient to explain tliis wonder, wliicli must be due to sev- 
eral causes. First, the innate bravery of tlie warlike, in- 
domitable Bedouins, who prize independence above life 
itself. Secondly, the contempt of life frequently found 
in savage races, perhaps because their existence offers so 
little to make it desirable; and, thirdly, the fanatical 
faith which inspires Mussulmans with the absolute con- 
viction that from battle against infidels they fly straight 
to that delicious jDaradise of verdant groves, cool breezes, 
and rivers of milk and wine. Nothing could appeal more 
powerfully to the imagination and senses of a passionate 
race, whose lives are an incessant struggle against hunger, 
scorching heat, and thirst. How often in my desert 
marches have I seen those very same Bedouins, — at that 
time peaceable camel-drivers and goat-herds, trudging 
along day after day, half-naked, bare-headed, and bare- 
footed, upon the blistering sand, with seldom water enough 
to quench their thirst, living on scanty rations of coarse 
bread or parched dourah and camel's cheese, and I won- 
dered if they really thought life worth li\ing ! For such 
men battle and death have no terrors. Above the smoke 
of musketry and the sheen of flashing bayonets, they be- 
hold with the eye of faith the cooling spray of Eden's 
fountains ; they see the peerless, black-eyed houris of 
paradise waving the Prophet's green-silken banners, and 
opening their arms to welcome the warrior to their em- 
brace, and they rush upon death with the gladness of a 
lover meeting his bride. It cannot be denied that faith is 
strongest in ignorant races, and diminishes in proportion 
to intelligence and civilization. I do not question in the 



256 llie British Campaign in the Soudan. 

least tlie sincerity of the average civilized Christian, but I 
very much doubt whether there are mau}^ v^ho would 
gladly fly to certain death to gain immediate admission to 
heaven. They would more probably follow the example 
of those two chaplains of General Jubal Early's command 
in the Valley, whom he once met running to the rear at a 
2.20 gait. The old soldier, who could swear as hard as he 
could fight, addressed them in his usual forcible style : 

" Blankity blank your blank souls ! Where the 

blank are you running to ? " 

They could hardly gasp out : 

" General ! the Yankees are coming ! '' 

" Blankity blank you ! " rejoined the irate Gen- 
eral ; '■'■ f 01' forty yeai's you have been wanting to get 
to heaven, and blank you, now you turn back when within 
just two minutes of it ! " 

There is a good deal of human nature in that. We all 
want to go to heaven some time or other — but not yet 
awhile ! • 

The criticisms I have made Inay appear harsh, but they 
are mildness itself when compared with the denunciations 
of many of the most eminent English soldiers and 
civilians, expressed in Parliament and through the press, 
only a few of which I have quoted. It is an undeniable 
fact that the Soudan war was one of the most complete 
military failures of modern times, and that after all her 
expenditure of blood and treasure, England was forced 
to retire baffled from the struggle against barbarians. 
In the words of the London Times, of Feb. 13th : 

"The Nile expedition, with its immense cost in men and money, represents a 
dead loss to the nation, a loss directly and wholly due not to the difficulties with 
which the government had to contend, but to the obstinacy with which they re- 
fused to recognize facts plain to all the world, and to assume responsibilities which 
it was their primary duty to discharge." 



Tlie British Campaign in the Soudan. 257 

But errors of judgment, though lamentable, leave no 
stain upon British arms ; for valor never shone 
brighter than when England's young soldiers, most of 
whom saw war for the first time, braved the terrible 
African heat and thirst, withstood unflinchingly the 
assaults of countless hordes of fierce Bedouins on the 
deserts of the Soudan, and plucked victory from the jaws 
of destruction. 

One of the best traits of the English character is 
its love of fair play and its appreciation of a plucky 
foe. This was never better illustrated than in the 
Soudan war. Every official report, as well as the letters 
of all the war correspondents, express the most unstinted 
praise and admiration for the courage and unsurpassed 
gallantry of the Soudanese. Those veteran officers who 
had had most experience of war were foremost in their 
eulogies of the Bedouins' bravery. This generous tribute 
mitigates in some degree the horrors of war, and, coming 
from equally brave Englishmen, we may say of. it in the 
words of a gifted poetess : 

"... accept it thus, 
An homage true they tender, 
As soldiers unto soldiers' worth, 
As brave to brave will render ! '" 

Unfortunate as were the i-esults of the Soudan war, it 
was not without its laurels. England will feel a just 
pride in the prowess of her troops, who showed themselves 
worthy successors of the soldiers of Plassey and Assaye, 
of Salamanca and Waterloo, of Inkerman, and a hundred 
other glorious fields. Herbert Stewart, Burnaby, Earle, 
Eyre, and many other gallant soldiers, sealed with their 
blood their devotion to their country. England had 



258 TJie British Campaign in the Soudan. 

naturally the most cause to regret their loss, but every 
soldierly heart in every land joined with true sympathy in 
the feeling of sorrow for their fate ; and perhaps it is no 
exaggeration to assert that the glory of having produced 
such a splendid type of modern Christian heroism as was 
exhibited in Gordon, is suificient consolation for the fail- 
ure of the campaign. An ancient poet said that an 
upright and resolute man struggling undismayed against 
adversity is the admiration of gods and men. Such a 
man was Gordon, England's Sir Galahad, her knight 
truly sans peur et sans reproche. While she justly 
mourns his loss, his noble life and death will remain a 
bright example for her soldiers in all time to come, and 
wherever civilization sheds her light, his name will be 
engraved high in the glorious roll of those heroes of 
humanity whose fame will never die ! 



CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY, FROM ME- 
HEMET-ALI TO iSS6. 



1769. — Moliammed- or Mehemct-Ali horn at Kavala, Macedonia. 

iSoi. — Goes in command of a band of Albanians to fight the French in Egypt. 

1S05. — Proclaimed Viceroy by the Mamlook Leys. 

1S07, Marcii 7. — British invasion of Egypt. Gen. Eraser captures Alexandria. 

1807, Sept. 14. — Compelled to evacuate Egypt after great losses. 1,000 heads of 

British soldiers killed in batile exposed on Place de Rumelia, Cairo. British 

prisoners well treated and returned without ransom after evacuation. 
iSlI, March I. — Melicmet-Ali exterminates the Mamlooks at the Citadel, Cairo^ 

and throughout Egypt. 
lSn-iSi8. — Suppression of Wahabee rebellion in Arabia by his son, Ibrahim- 

Pabha. 
1S15. — Mehemet-Ali organizes his army upon European system. 
1S20-1S21. — Conquest of Dongola, Sennaar, and Kordofan. Ismail-Pasha burnt 

to death at Shendy. 
1823. — Mehemet-Ali founds Khartoum, capital of the Egyptian Soudan. 
1823-1827. — Ibrahim-Pasha's campaigns in Greece. Destruction of Turkish and 

Egyptian fleets at Navarino (1827). 
1832. — jMeb.emet-Ali rebels against Sultan. Ibrahim defeats Turks at Koniah 

(Asia Minor). European powers inlerfere and slop Ibrahim's advance. 
1839. — Meiiemet-Ali rebels again. Ibrahim conquers Syria, defeats 'J'urks at 

Nezib, and threatens Constantinople. Europe interferes, compels Mehemet- 
Ali to give up Syria, but (1S41) he is recognized Vicei^oy for life wiih succession 

to eldest male of his family, 
1841. — Establishment of his dynasty guaranteed by Turkey, England, France,. 

Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Egypt remains a vassal of the Porte, pays 

tribute, and furnishes contingent in war. 
1846. — Catholic mission founded at Khartoum under protection of Austria. 
1S48. — Mehemet-Ali becomes insane. Ibrahim-Pasha regent. 
1S49. — Mehemet-Ali dies. Ibrahim also. Abbas his nephew succeeds him. 
1S54. — Abbas assassinated. Said-Pasha, third son of Meiiemet-Ali, succeeds him. 
1S63. — Deatli of Said. Accession of Ismail-Pasha, son of Ibrahim. 
1866. — By doubling the tribute he obtains the title of Khedive and change in order 

of succession to his eldest son, instead of eldest male, who is his uncle, Ilalim. 
1869. — Opening of Suez Canal with fetes costing $10,000,000. Sir Samuel Baker 

appointed Governor-General of Soudan. 
1869-1878. — Numerous appointments of American officers in the Egyptian Army. 
1S74. — Gordon succeeds Sir S. Baker as Governor-General of Soudan. 

259 



260 Tlie JBritisli Campaign in the Soudan. 

1874, Oct. — Zobehr defeats and kills the Sultan of Darfour. Ismail-Pasha sends 
an army and completes the conquest and annexation of Darfour. 

3875. — Gordon establishes garrisons in "equatorial provinces" up to the lakes. 
Zobehr summoned to Cairo, made a pasha, and held in gilded captivity. 

1875, Oct. and Nov. — Commencement of Abyssinian •wo.t. Munzinger-Pasha, with 
1,000 men, and Col. Arrendrup, with 2,500, entirely destroyed. 

•1876. — Egyptian army of 15,000 regulars, under Ratib-Pasha, defeated at battle of 
Gura Plains, March, 1876, by King John. Evacuate the country in May. 
Establishment of "mixed tribunals." Financial difficulties. Mr. Cave re- 
ports to British Government that Egypt equitably owes less than ;!f45,ooo,ooo 
of the ^100, coo, 000 for which she had issued her bonds. 

3877. — Ismail voluntarily appoints Commissioners of the Public Debt, English, 
French, and Italian. They gradually seize the entire administration and 
usurp Ismail's powers. Turco-Russian war. Ismail sends contingent of 
20,0Q0 men. 

1878. — Rebellion of Zobehr-Pasha's sons at his instigation in the Soudan. 

1879, Feb. iS. — Commissioners reduce the army. Emeute of 2,500 regular officers 
discharged penniless and refused the two years' back pay due them. They 
compel the Ministry to partial payment. 

1879. — Ismail, exasperated by seeing himself and his country sacrificed for foreign 
bondholders, dismisses the Commissioners. They appeal to their governments 
(June 26), which obtain from the Sultan a firman deposing Ismail. Tewfik 
succeeds him. 

End of 1879. — Gordon resigns and Raouf-Pasha succeeds him as Governor-General 
of Soudan. 

1881, Feb. 2. — Achmed-el-Arabi, Col. 4th Infantry, and three other colonels pro- 
test against promotions of Circassians over their heads. Sent to citadel in ar- 
rest. Their regiments rise in arms, rescue them, and compel dismissal of 
Minister of War. 

1881, July. — Mohammed Achmed proclaims himself the expected Mahdi. 

i88i, Aug. 10. — He defeats the force sent by Raouf-Pasha to suppress him. 

1881, Sept. 9. — The Ministry being about to disperse the mutinous regiments at 
Cairo, Arabi surrounds the Khedive's palace with 4,000 men, demands dismis- 
sal of Ministry, a constitution, and a parliament. Sherif-Pasha appointed 
Prime-Minister. 

1881, Dec. 8. — Reshid-Bey with 1,500 men defeated and killed by the Mahdi in 
Sennaar. 

1881, Dec. 26. — Assembly of Notables convene, announce a just and equitable 
plan of constitutional government, and guarantee payment of public debt and 
its interest. 

1881, Dec. — Plan rejected by England and France. Ministerial crisis. 

1882, Feb. 3. — Sherif-Pasha resigns (Feb. 5th). Arabi Minister of War. 
1882, Feb. 23. — Raouf-Pasha recalled ; Giegler acting Gov.-Gen'l of Soudan. 
1882, March 15. — Yusuf-Pasha leaves Khartoum with 5,000 men to attack the 

Mahdi. 



The Bfitish Campaign in the Soudan. 261 

1882, April II. — Trial of Circassian officers' for conspiracy to murder Arabi. 
Ministry convoke Assembly of Notables without Khedive's consent. 

1882, May 6. — Sennaar hard pressed by rebels, who are finally defeated with 
great loss. 

1882, May 12. — Abd-el-Kader-Pasha, the new Governor-General, reaches Khar- 
toum. 

1882, May 20. — English and French squadrons repair to Alexandria to overawe 
the people. Their presence produces intense irritation. 

1882, May 25. — England and France demand Arabi's banishment. Refused by 
the Ministry. 

1882, June II. — Massacre at Alexandria. 150 Europeans and 700 natives killed 
and wounded. 

1882, June 13. — News reaches Khartoum of Yusuf-Pasha's total destruction at 
Jebel Gedir. 

1882, June 24. — The Mahdi repulsed at Bara (Kordofan), with loss of 3,000. 

1882, July II. — Bombardment of Alexandria by the British fleet. 

1S82, July 23. — Arabi proclaimed a rebel by the Khedive. 

1882, Aug. — Sir Arch. Alison occupies Alexandria with 6,000 British troops. 

1882, Aug. 15. — Lord Wolseley arrives and takes command. About 30,000 British 
in Egypt. 

1882, Aug. 24. — British seize Suez Canal and make it their base, in spite of pledges 
to respect its neutrality given to de Lesseps, which had kept Arabi from de- 
stroying it. 

1882, Aug. 28. — Amr-el-Makashef attacks Duem, and is repulsed with loss of 
3,000. 

1882, Sept. 8-14. — The Mahdi makes three assaults on El Obeid. Defeated ;; 
loss 15,000. 

1882, Sept. 9. — British captured advance post at Kassassin. 

1882, Sept. 12-13. — Battle of Tel-el-Kebir. Total defeat of Arabi's army. 

1882, Sept. 15. — Cairo occupied by British. Arabi surrenders. 

1882, Sept. 25. — Khedive re-enters Cairo. Sherif Prime-Minister. 

1882, Dec. 10. — Some of Arabi's disaffected regiments sent to the Soudan. 

1882, Dec. 15. — Lt.-Col. O. H. Stewart (nth Hussars) reaches Khartoum and re- 
ports situation to British Government. 

1883, Jan. 5, 17. — The Mahdi captures Bara. El Obeid, reduced to starvation, 
surrenders to the Mahdi, and the garrison join his ranks. 

1883, Feb. 20, 24, and 27. — Abd-el-Kader defeats the rebels in three engagements. 

1883, March 10. — General Hicks arrives at Khartoum. 

1883, March 22. — Abd-el-Kader defeats the rebels at Karkodj. 

1883, March 26. — He is recalled to Cairo and superseded by Allah-ed-Deen. 

1883, April 29. — Hicks-Pasha defeats rebels at Marabia (Sennaar). Achmed-el- 

Makashef killed. 
1883, May. — Hicks-Pasha defeats the Mahdi near Khartoum and at Jebel- Ai'n, and 

drives him back to Kordofan. 
1883, Aug. 13. — Osman-Digma attacks Suakim, and is repulsed with loss. 



262 The British Cam/paign in the 8oudan, 

1883, Aug. 20. — Hicks-Pasha supersedes Suleiman as Commander-in-Cliief in 

Soudan. 
1883, Sept. 8. — He leaves Khartoum with 11,000 men to recapture El Obeld. 
1883, Nov. 1-4. — Is exterminated with all his force at Kashgill. 
1883, Nov. 6. — Consul Moncrieff, with Egyptian force, destroyed at Tokar. 
1883, Nov. 9. — Gladstone's speech at Guildhall, announcing partial evacuation of 

Egypt. 
1883. Nov. 20. — News of the disasters reaches London. 
3883, 26-30.— Suakim attacked by Osman-Digma. British Ministry order Tewfik 

to abandon Soudan and Nubia to ist cataract. 
1883, Dec. 2. — Seven hundred Egyptian troops destroyed near Suakim ; only 

fifty escape. 
1883, Dec. 18. — Baker- Pasha leaves Cairo for Suakim with a motley force of 4,000. 

1883, Dec. 26. — Turkey notified that her intervention will be allowed in Soudan. 
J884, Jan. 8. — Sherif's Ministry resign rather than abandon Soudan. Nubar- 

Pasha, Prime-Minister. 
T884, Jan. 18. — Gordon leaves London. (24) Reaches Cairo, and leaves next day 
for Khartoum. 

1884, Feb. 4. — Baker defeated at Tokar, with loss of 2,500. 

1884, Feb. 10. — Suakim attacked. Defended by British gun-boats. Admiral 

Hewett, Governor. 
1884, Feb. II. — Fall of Sinkat. Tewfik-Bey and garrison die fighting to the last. 
1884, Feb. 18. — Gordon reaches Khartoum and is warmly received. 
1884, Feb. 19. — Sir Gerald Graham sails from Suez for Suakim with 5,000 men. 
1884, Feb. 21. — Tokar captured by Osman-Digma. 

1884, Feb. 29. — Battle of Teb. Graliam defeats Osman-Digma with great slaughter. 
1884, March 2. — Graham re-takes Tokar. (5) Returns to Suakim with all his force. 
1884, March 8. — Earl Granville notifies Sir Ev. Baring that Egyptian frontier 

must be at 1st cataract. 
1884, March 13. — Battle of Tamai'. 2d Brigade broken and guns lost and recaptured, 

British loss, 180: rebels, 2,000. 
1884, March 16. — Gordon attacked at Khartoum. 
1884, March 21. — Makes sortie, and is repulsed at Halfiyeh by treachery of two 

pashas. 
1S84, March 24. — Terrible march of British towards Tamanieb. One half pros- 
trated by heat. 
1884, March 27. — Tamanieb wells occupied and Osman-Digma's camp burnt. 
1884, March 29. — Sir Herbert Stewart with cavalry force pushes on to Handoub 

wells. 
1884, March 30. — Returns exhausted. All Graham's army return to Suakim. 
1884, April I. — Graham re-embarks for Suez with all his force. 
1884, April 2. — Osman-Digma captures many cattle and 1,000 sheep within one 

mile of Suakim. 
1884, April 5. — General Stephenson and Sir E. Baring ordered to report on 

Korosko, Suakim, and Nile routes. 



The British Oa/mpaign in the Soudan. 268- 

1884, April 8. — Gordon telegraphs that he has supplies for five months. 

1884, April 16. — Consul Power reports Khartoum blockaded north, east, and west. 

1884, April 20. — Refugees sent for safety from Khartoum intercepted at Shendy ;. 

450 soldiers and 1,500 people massacred. 
iS84, April 30. — Admiral Hewett interviews King John at Adowa. Gordon sends 

indignant dispatches to Sir E. Baring, charging abandonment. 
1884, May 8. — River route adopted for rescuing expedition. Camel depot ordered 

formed at Assouan. 
1884, May 12. — Mr. Gladstone's declaration that the Mahdi is fighting for freedom 

and should not be put down. England withdraws proposition to Turkey to 

send her troops to Soudan. 
1884, May 26. — Berber captured. The garrison and 2,000 people massacred. 
1884, May 27. — El-Fascher, capital of Darfour, captured by the rebels. 
1884, June I. — River route abandoned. Suakim-Berber route decided on. 
1884, June 14. — Admiral Hewett reports King John willing to furnish troops. 
1884, June 16. — Engineer troops sent to Suakim to survey route. 
1884, June 30. — Mudir of Dongola defeats 13,000 rebels. 
J884, July 19. — Railroad plant and iron-clad cars sent to Suakim. 
1884, Aug. 18. — Suakim route abandoned. Railroad plant shipped to India. 

River route finally adopted. 
1884, Aug. 31. — General Lord Wolseley sails from England. (Sept. 9) Reaches 

Cairo. 
1884, Sept. 15. — Gordon shells and destroys Berber. (i8) Col. Stewart, Consuls 

Power and Herbin, with a number of refugees, wrecked at fourth cataract and 

massacred. 
1884, Sept. 26. — Camel corps leave England. (Oct. 5) Wolseley at Wady Haifa. 

(6) Gordon shells Shendy and other towns. (28) 6,000 British troops south of 

Sioot. 
1884, Nov. 3. — Wolseley reaches Dongola. (15) 800 whale-boats reach Wady 

Haifa and start (Nov. 19) with 3,000 troops up the Nile ; 6,000 more on the 

way between first and second cataracts. 
1884, Dec. 6. — Sir Herbert Stewart with 1,000 men pushes forward from Dongola 

to Ambukol. 
1884, Dec. 13. — Wolseley reaches Debbe. (16) Joins Stewart at Korti. 

1884, Dec. 25. — 10,000 British troops between second cataract and Korti (30) 
Stewart starts with 1,150 men and 2,000 camels for Gakdul. (Jan. 2, 1885) 
Occupies Gakdul wells. (3) Returns alone to Korti. 

1885, Jan. 5. — General Earle sent up the Nile towards Abou-Hamefl with 2,400 men. 
1885, Jan. 8. — Stewart starts back from Korti with 1,500 more men and as many 

camels. 
1885, Jan. 10. — Burnaby leaves Korti with a supply train for Stewart at Gakdul. 
1885, Jan. 13. — Omdurman captured. 

1885, Jan. 17. — Battle of Abou-Klea wells. Burnaby killed. 
1885, Jan. 18. — Gordon makes unsuccessful sortie. 
1885, Jan. 19. — Battle of Shebacat wells (or Gubat). Stewart mortally wounded. 



264 The British Cmnj^aign in the Soudan. 

1885, Jan. 21. — Four of Gordon's steamers arrive at Gubat. (22 and 23) Sir 

Charles Wilson shells villages. (24) Starts up the Nile for Khartoum with 

two steamers. 
1885, Jan. 24. — Earle's column leaves Homdab for Abou-Hained. 
1885, Jan. 26. — Khartoum captured and Gordon killed. About 4,000 slaughtered. 
1885, Jan. 28. — Sir C. Wilson finds Khartoum in possession of the enemy and 

turns back. 
1885, Jan. 29. — One steamer wrecked. (31) The other also. He takes refuge on 

an island. 
1885, Feb. 1-2. — Gallantly rescued by Lord Charles Beresford on another steamer 

from Gubat. 
1885, Feb. 8. — Wolseley directed from London to capture Berber at all hazards. . 
1885, Feb. 10. — Sir Redvers Buller reaches Gubat with reinforcements. 2,600 . 

men there. 
1885, Feb. 10. — Battle of Birti or Kirbekan. General Earle killed. Brackenbury 

in command. 
1885, Feb. II. — West Kent Regiment leave Korti for Gubat. 
1885, Feb. 12. — Sir Gerald Graham assigned to command of Suakim expedition. 

Railroad to be laid " at once ! " 
1885, Feb. 14. — Sir Redvers Buller evacuates Gubat after disabling remaining 

steamers. 
1885, Feb. 16. — Sir Herbert Stewart dies and is buried at Gakdul wells. 
1885, Feb. 19. — Sir R. Buller ordered to concentrate at Korti. 
1885, Feb. ig. — Departure of the Guards from London for Suakim. 
1885, Feb. 20-25. — Buller's difficult retreat to Korti. 
1885, Ftb. 25. — Brackenbury crosses his fcrce to east bank and same day receives 

orders to concentrate at Korti, and crosses back. 
1885, Feb. 28. — Contract made for pipe-line for Suakim route. 
1885, March 2. — Wolseley announces purpose to hold Korti-Gakdul route. 
1885, March 9. — All his force concentrated at Korti. 
1885, March 10. — Grenadier and Coldstream Guards (General Freemantle) reach 

Suakim. 
1885, March 15. — Zobehr-Pasha and his two sons arrested for treason and incar- 
cerated at Gibraltar. 
1885, March 20. — Wolseley retires from Korti to Dongola and gradually to second 

cataract during April and May. 
1885, March 20. — Battle at Hasheen. Graham defeats Osman-Digma and returns 

to Suakim. 
1885, March 22. — Second battle at Hasheen and return to Suakim. 
1885, March 28. — Graham advances to McNeil's zeriba. Two miles' advance in 

two weeks. 
1885, April I. — Finds Tamai wells evacuated. Burns Osman-Digma's camp and 

returns to Suakim. 
1885, April. — Railroad project abandoned. Plant sent back to England. An- 
other Mahdi appears in Kordofan. 



1 he British Ca/mpaign in the Soudcm. 265 

1885, May 7. — Wolseley goes through Cairo and Suez to Suakim, reviews Graham's 

army, and returns to Cairo. 
1885, May 5-20. — Graham re-embarks with his army and returns to Alexandria, 
1885, June 21. — The Mahdi dies in Kordofan. Abd-AUah Kalif succeeds him, 
1885, July. — Wolseley returns to England. Lt.-Gen. Stephenson left in command 

of all British forces in Egypt. 
1885, Dec. 30. — Sir R. BuUer attacks and defeats rebels at Ghinnis, above Wady 

Haifa. 
1886. — British forces withdrawn, leaving two regiments at first cataract. 



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